Floppy drives still going strong

UK equipment manufacturer Lindy Electronics believes there is still a future for 3.5in floppy drives, despite the fact that computer manufacturers have ditched the media.

Lindy claimed that there are still many users who wish to use the format and has launched a USB floppy drive that will enable users to access data on 3.5in disks via a USB port on their PC or Mac.

"We know that customers are using 3.5in floppies because we are still seeing a demand for them," said Stephen Fawcett, senior product manager at Lindy.

"Apart from being an obvious solution for retrieving data from a legacy device that does not support any other method of data transfer, there are also many other situations where a floppy drive can be useful.

"Even those of us who prefer pen drives and the like have probably found ourselves presented with a floppy of 'important data' and wished we still had an easy way to access it. So our USB floppy drive can be a useful tool."

The drive is available now for around £29.99, but it remains to be seen where users can actually buy the disks.

UK retailer PC World said in January that it would not restock the storage medium when its present supplies ran out, an attitude mirrored by mainstream retailers.