There are days when a stack of floppy disks can drown us in nostalgia, but then we remember the poor quality of the last drives, read errors, limited capacity, and general waste of time. However, that doesn't mean we should abandon the search for alternative uses for a floppy disk. For example, with a little surgery we can increase its capacity to 512 GB, just as youtuber Franklinstein did recently…
If you still have some floppy disks in your possession, you most likely want to back them up. Dust, humidity, and the passage of time will affect their integrity (sooner or later), a detail that preservers and retro hardware enthusiasts must frequently contend with. Disks for many programs already have safe copies on portals like the Internet Archive, while rarer projects need a backup with extreme urgency, but the question is: What do we do with physical disks? Youtuber Franklinstein has a proposal: Store 512 GB on a floppy disk.
How to store 512 GB (or more) on a floppy disk
At this point is when shoes and tomatoes start flying, because Franklinstein's strategy is simply to open the floppy, remove its magnetic 'guts,' and create a plastic circle that serves as a tray to store memory cards. However, it's not such a bad idea. The magnetic disk becomes the ideal template to cut the tray with the exact circumference, and the floppy needs no external modifications. In short, more than hacking, it's crafting.
But here is when anyone can say: 'Enough joking, how do we really increase a diskette's capacity?' The curious thing is that we already have the answer, courtesy of Dr. Moddnstine, who in 2016 taught us an amazing sleeper machine (Core i7-6700k in an IBM Aptiva chassis), along with his hack to install SD cards in a floppy and read them from there. The half-hour video we'll share below has more info about it, but the best is to visit his gallery on Imgur.
So… why not try it this weekend? You can follow Franklinstein's route to "store" 512 GB on a floppy disk or accept Dr. Moddnstine's challenge and modify the drives directly. Don't forget the backups!
