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A few seconds after connecting a USB floppy disk drive to a Windows 10 computer, the whole disk is read to cache (making every file readable without additional physical reading). Is it possible to disable caching for this kind of removable media?
Sometimes floppy disk content is cached, other times it is not; I still haven't figured out the pattern. I'm quite certain it happens every time I turn on the Windows 10 computer and connect the floppy drive with a 720KiB floppy.
I have never observed floppy disk caching on Windows XP (using the same drive and floppies).
Pedro Palhoto
Posted 2019-08-30T21:51:49.647
Reputation: 1 407
Why are you sill using obsolete storage devices? – DavidPostill – 2019-08-31T20:08:20.460
Surprisingly, real 720KiB 3.5" floppies still have the largest cross data transfer range between different platforms, from older non-networked systems (late 80s-90s) to current day computers (via USB floppy drives). GoTek floppy drive emulators only allow for one size formats per drive, meaning they don't allow PC (720KiB) to Amiga (880KiB) transfers and vice-versa, for instance. If you want to rotate old computers for regular usage, using a USB stick equivalent way for cross storage, floppies are the way to go. That is, if your use cases for data usage are low storage (text files and such). – Pedro Palhoto – 2019-09-03T07:41:53.850
Curious, whats the problem with it caching the disk? – Tim G. – 2019-09-04T12:40:39.067
The issue is excessive reads. Drive heads touch the floppies' surface, which should be minimized to avoid tear. – Pedro Palhoto – 2019-09-17T19:27:21.253