The Rise and Fall of 3M's Floppy Disk

Re:The Rise and Fall of 3M's Floppy Disk by camtarn on Wednesday April 03, 2024 @06:44AM (#39915706)

They have a limited lifetime. It's a fairly long limited lifetime, sure, but unless you're reading and rewriting the data on the cards regularly, you can't rely on them to all still be intact a decade down the line.

Which is a shame, because I kinda love the idea of my music collection being stored in a little cube that unfolds to reveal a hundred or so micro SD cards.

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Re:The Rise and Fall of 3M's Floppy Disk by bombcar on Wednesday April 03, 2024 @08:50AM (#39916776)

Maybe not SD cards but something similar - Nintendo Switch cartridges are a few GB and seem quite durable.

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Re:The Rise and Fall of 3M's Floppy Disk by camtarn on Wednesday April 03, 2024 @11:48AM (#39919003)

Huh, those are neat! The largest ones seem to use Macronix HybridFlash technology, and:

"HybridFlash provides a very stable medium to contents and OS, enabling storage as long as 20 years at 85 degrees centigrade and it also works normally from 40 degrees below zero to 85 degrees centigrade."

So, not forever, but definitely longer than regular flash memory. Cool.

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Re:The Rise and Fall of 3M's Floppy Disk by flyinghamster on Wednesday April 03, 2024 @09:59AM (#39917583)

I'm surprised nobody has made SD cards with mask-programmed ROM or even traditional write-once PROM.

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Re:The Rise and Fall of 3M's Floppy Disk by mrguyorama on Wednesday April 03, 2024 @10:17AM (#39917833)

It's called a Nintendo DS game card. I don't know if the Switch game cards are flash or mask-ROM.

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Re:The Rise and Fall of 3M's Floppy Disk by monocasa on Wednesday April 03, 2024 @11:43AM (#39918932)

Mask ROM.

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Re:The Rise and Fall of 3M's Floppy Disk by TapamN on Wednesday April 03, 2024 @05:15PM (#39923254)

I don't have a source, but I think I remember reading somewhere that Switch games are some kind of archival flash, designed for 50+ year retention.

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