What is a floppy disk?

Question

What is a floppy disk, and how does it differ from a hard drive?

Answer 1

The floppy disk drive (FDD) was invented at IBM by Alan Shugart in 1967. The first floppy drives used an 8-inch disk (later called a "diskette" as it got smaller), which evolved into the 5.25-inch disk that was used on the first IBM Personal Computer in August 1981. The 5.25-inch disk held 360 kilobytes compared to the 1.44 megabyte capacity of today's 3.5-inch diskette.
The 5.25-inch disks were dubbed "floppy" because the diskette packaging was a very flexible plastic envelope, unlike the rigid case used to hold today's 3.5-inch diskettes.

By the mid-1980s, the improved designs of the read/write heads, along with improvements in the magnetic recording media, led to the less-flexible, 3.5-inch, 1.44-megabyte (MB) capacity FDD in use today. For a few years, computers had both FDD sizes (3.5-inch and 5.25-inch). But by the mid-1990s, the 5.25-inch version had fallen out of popularity, partly because the diskette's recording surface could easily become contaminated by fingerprints through the open access area.
A floppy disk is a lot like a cassette tape:
Both use a thin plastic base material coated with iron oxide. This oxide is a ferromagnetic material, meaning that if you expose it to a magnetic field it is permanently magnetized by the field.
Both can record information instantly.
Both can be erased and reused many times.
Both are very inexpensive and easy to use.
If you have ever used an audio cassette, you know that it has one big disadvantage -- it is a sequential device. The tape has a beginning and an end, and to move the tape to another song later in the sequence of songs on the tape you have to use the fast forward and rewind buttons to find the start of the song, since the tape heads are stationary. For a long audio cassette tape it can take a minute or two to rewind the whole tape, making it hard to find a song in the middle of the tape.
A floppy disk, like a cassette tape, is made from a thin piece of plastic coated with a magnetic material on both sides. However, it is shaped like a disk rather than a long thin ribbon. The tracks are arranged in concentric rings so that the software can jump from "file 1" to "file 19" without having to fast forward through files 2-18. The diskette spins like a record and the heads move to the correct track, providing what is known as direct access storage.

it differs from a hard drive in the sense that the info in a disc is stored on film whereas in a hard drive the info is stored on digital chips. hope this helps

Answer 2

If you have spent any time at all working with a computer, then chances are good that you have used a floppy disk at some point. The floppy disk drive (FDD) was the primary means of adding data to a computer until the CD-ROM drive became popular. In fact, FDDs have been an key component of most personal computers for more than 20 years.

Basically, a floppy disk drive reads and writes data to a small, circular piece of metal-coated plastic similar to audio cassette tape. In this article, you will learn more about what is inside a floppy disk drive and how it works. You will also find out some cool facts about FDDs.

Answer 3

A floppy disk is a data storage device that is composed of a ring of thin, flexible (i.e. "floppy") magnetic storage medium encased in a square or rectangular plastic shell. Floppy disks are read and written by a floppy disk drive or FDD, the latter initialism not to be confused with "fixed disk drive", which is an old IBM term for a hard disk drive.

Answer 4

A floppy disk refers to the surface of the disk. Many, many moons ago, there were devices in your computer called floppy drives. They came in three and a half inch or five and a quarter inch disk sizes. The disks themselves were protected by external covers; soft vinyl for 5.25 and hard plastic for 3.5 inch disks. But the disk surface inside is very thin plastic about the thickness of say, an xray film.

Hard disks, on the other hand, are much thicker. the disk is usually thick enough that it couldn't bend, but would break instead if stressed enough.

Answer 5

A floppy disk is made of mylar, and is flexible. A hard disk is, well, hard! It doesn't flex at all. A floppy disk comes in a case, and can be removed from the drive to provide portable storage like a USB memory stick. Floppy disks are obsolete.

Answer 6

Floppy disk is a removable disk like a CD that we copy things on. Floppy disk are square. Most new pc don't have floppy disk drives other then dell that I'm aware of.

Answer 7

A floppy disk is a 3.5" diskett that holds 1.44 Mbs of storage. Hard drives are 3.5" also but they are about a half an inch thick and can hold alot more than just 1.44 mbs. Floppy disks have a cheap... flimsy disk inside the casing... but a hardrive has metal like disks that can hold alot of stuff on them.

Answer 8

A floppy disk is like a portable hard drive but doesn't hold as much good for small file transfers.....fyi floppys are old skool use a usb flash drive more space and much smaller

Answer 9

I floppy is a small 3 1/2 inch portable disk that holds 1.44 meg of data. It is going the way of the dinosaur because everyone is switching to CD and DVD because of higher capacity.

Answer 10

a hard drive is where you save programs and data and may be used like a computer, it runs that way.


a floppy disk is a disk you insert to your computer where u have files saved to. not nessesary programs and such. just text documents and some picutres. never rely on floppy disks.