Many people ask, "Do I really need a hard drive?" The answer varies, but once you get used to the convenience of having all your most used programs in one place and the speed at which they load (about 15 times faster than most floppies), you’ll wonder how you ever got along without it. BBS owners will appreciate the speed, as well as the wear and tear saved on their floppy drives. It is perfect for software developers as you can speed assembly/compiling time while keeping all versions of your program stored safely away. Since the Black Box allows single density, unprotected disks to be placed on the hard disk, the compatibility door is open even for DOSes that do not support hard disks.