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this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2024
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Here's some useless retro crap: the 8" disks almost certainly cost more.
There was absolutely a reliability scale as you moved down the physical disk size: the 8 inch disks were more reliable than the 5.25, which were more reliable than the 3.5, due in large part to the market was requiring them to get cheaper as the drive tech matured, and thus you ended up with cheaper, less reliable media as you went along through the evolution.
40 years later, 8" disks nearly all read, 5.25" disks mostly all read, and 3.5" disks are an absolute crapshoot: I find that less than half of the ones I come across are still actually accessible, compared to about 90% of the 5.25" and 8" ones.
That experience of course has some personal bias, but that's a story that holds pretty true talking to anyone who tries to archive old floppies, so it's probably reasonable enough to use for actual data.
So, if you wanted the most reliable option, and since the military probably doesn't care what it costs, you'd pick a 8" disk.