Floppy hack: RAID5 with 1.44″ floppies

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Years ago, out of sheer boredom, we attached 6 1.44 inch floppy drives on 3 floppy controllers (ISA) which we installed into old pentium box. It took us few reboots to configure all three floppy controllers properly (mainly setting the jumpers right to avoid interrupt clashing) and we were ready to go.

With 6 floppies in the floppy drives we configured software RAID5 (maybe we did RAID1, I don’t remember) and put CVS on it. Sure, floppy lights were flashing as we issued commits. I can’t describe the sounds and sights of drooling and cheering we did as beer cans were being opened.

I don’t remember all technical details (beer might be to blame) but the lights were blinking and we actually used that CVS for few days. Also I don’t know what happened with that box, but I’ll always remember that moment when lights began to flash. It was one of those moments I’ll always remember – few guys hacked the floppy RAID.

Tags: Floppy disk, RAID