#floppydrive

2026-02-08

The addition of more drives definitely has a linear-ish scaling in bandwidth. With three disks, the software RAID of floppy disks is up to a whopping 1.09kBps!



A screenshot of the output printed after a dd command of 50kBytes is written from /dev/random to the Floppy RAID volume. The bandwidth is 1116 bytes per second.
2026-02-07

The command I used looks like:

diskutil appleraid create stripe FLOPPYRAID ‘MS-DOS FAT12’ disk8 disk5 disk4

The command to list all known software RAIDs is:

diskutil appleraid list

2/2



A screenshot of the terminal output from creating a software RAID on macOS. A screenshot of the terminal output from listing all software RAID volumes on macOS.
2026-02-07

Apple’s graphical Disk Utility app is becoming increasingly useless to me. They are probably isolating the functions to make it easier for the common user to fix issues on their systems without accidentally breaking something.

I figured out the terminal command needed to create a software RAID from two or more floppy disks. The issue I was having was due to the filesystem name. The manpages are somewhat unclear on how to specify it.

1/2



2026-01-31

I'm working on a 3D printed Commodore 1541-II case, time for the lid. Eventually found that printing this model upright got me the best result. The print's fine except a fracture on the right side, it was there even when the thing was on the printer bed. I guess the nicely modelled vents cause a structural issue right there. I'm not too worried, I'll get some clear UV resin and reinforce it from the inside. When the lid is in place, there'll be zero stress on that part. #commodore #commodore1541 #3dprinting #floppydrive

Blue 3D printed parts for a Commodore 1541-II floppy disk drive parts on a wooden table. It's the front cover and the lid for the case, looking quite good.A blue 3D printed lid for a Commodore 1541-II floppy disk drive on the printer bed, standing upright with a lot of support trees visible on the inside of the part.
2026-01-25

"Dialed" into the Mac Studio wirelessly across the room for some IRCing on old hardware, here as the snow falls. ❄️

I had to modify the plist and shell config scripts I'd setup on the Mac since "upgrading" to macOS 26 Tahoe to get this working without gripes in the terminal.

#Mac #macOS #terminal #serialterminal #vintagecomputing #retrocomputing #retrocomputers #computinginthesnow #AppleII #AppleIIe #MacStudio #ProTerm #BBSing #IRCing #BBS #IRC #WiFi232 #login #telnet #WiFimodem #computers #CRT #floppydrive #ByteCellar #BASH #photo #UNIX

Apple IIe setup acting as a remote terminal to a Mac Studio elsewhere in the room
2026-01-25

It does seem formatting the two disks as a RAID0 volume allows for slightly higher write speeds. Now the volume can achieve about 700Bps, which is up from 500Bps for a single disk!



2026-01-25

Completely unnecessary Floppy disk RAID shenanigans. I had to try it after Sean from Action Retro did this with over a dozen drives.

It would seem that the APFS filesystem doesn't work with such a small volume, but FAT does!



A photo of two external floppy disk drives, one stacked on top of the other. The bottom drive has a purple top case layer while the top drive has a white top case layer. The base color for both drives is a light gray. Both drives are the Sony FDD 2x model MPF88E-UA.A screenshot of macOS Disk Utility creating a RAID volume out of the two floppy disks and drives.A screenshot of the macOS Disk Utility application alert window indicating the RAID Creation Failed. It would seem the default APFS file system cannot handle a volume of only 2.8 megabytes.A screenshot of the Disk Utility application window after the RAID volume was reformatted with FAT32. The volume is mounted and working properly now.
2026-01-10

It’s a new Commodore 1541 drive that came to me with the diagnosis „bad read head“.
#commodore #c1541 #floppydrive

A mixed 1541 disk drive with breadbin beige case and white (but yellowed) drive mechanism. It has a rotary encoder and an OLED display.
2025-12-27

New video: Commodore 4040 Disk Drive Repair
We have another Commodore IEEE-488 dual disk drive. It is the predecessor of the 8050 and it is almost compatible with the 1541, the C64's disk drive. This specimen doesn't work, its drives look quite mangled. So let's fix it! But it is never that easy...

youtu.be/oQBwEAJBwCY

#retrocomputing #commodore #commodorePET #floppydrive

Me looking desperate in front of an opened CBM 4040 dual floppy disk drive
2025-12-20

Working on the CBM 4040... The first replacement drive has been cleaned, and the bearings have been lubricated as far as I can reach them.
#commodore #cbm4040 #commodorePET #floppydrive

A Shugart SA390 disk drive mechanism with signs of wear and age on my desk.
2025-11-30

#retroComputing:
Is there anything I should do before charging, turning on, and trying install a new operating system a laptop that's been sitting for ten years?

I visibly checked the battery; it looks fine, but it had been attached the entire time.

Also, with #Linux, is there anything I would need to operate the #floppyDrive? Do some distros work better than others for that?

#AskFedi #FediTechHelp

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