That's because it connects to an existing 5.25" drive

> is there any hardware you know of that replicates the drive itself?

Why would you build a device to emulate a device that already exists, when all you need to do is communicate with it?

I don't want to have to buy used gear off eBay, and wouldn't need to for 3.5" disks or drives - you can actually find people producing new stock.

Why doesn't 5.25" hardware get the same treatment?

Not that long ago, motherboards still had a floppy controller. These computers do mostly still work.

So do the ones from the 80s, for that matter.

>USB 3.5" floppy drives

To anybody considering: Don't bother. They can only read/write the most standard IBM PC format. No flux streams.

Instead, get any old floppy drive and a greaseweazle at about the same cost. You'll be able to read and write all sorts of formats, and recover data from damaged and otherwise unreadable floppies.