Though Floppy drives have been made largely obsolete in recent years by devices
such as USB ''Thumb Drives'' and CD writers, they are often installed anyway
because they are sometimes required for BIOS updates and exchanging small
files with older computers. Floppy drives block air movement with wide cables,
and can make computers set to check the drive take longer to start (most have an
option in their bios to disable this.). One option to overcome the cable problem
and to make it easier to install is to buy an external USB floppy drive, these are
potentially a little bit faster and can be plugged into a different system (such
as a laptop without a floppy drive.) However, not all systems support booting
from a USB floppy drive – most notably older motherboards.
It should be noted that floppy disks are not suitable for long term storage
of data, even in a backup role. Never keep your only copy of an important file
on a floppy disk.