what is the difference between a floppy disk and a hard disk?

Answer 1

A floppy is a 31/2 inch removable disk thart can store up to 1.44 megabytes of info. A hard drive is massive in storage space in comparison! Although the disk is made of the same media, a hard drive can hold an operating system and is the actual area where your op sys is located.

Answer 2

The hard disk is a large magnetic drive that usually sits inside your pc. it's what holds all your data and the operating system. They can be external too, but basically it's the mass storage peripheral for a PC.

a floppy drive is a disk, like those 3 1/2 " disks people used to use before flash drives. there were larger ones besides that, but they are called floppy disks because inside, they have a single disc that is very thin (and floppy) and is only enough space to hold small amounts of data. Keep in mind that the smaller, hard disks are still considered floppy discs because inside they do have a thin disc.

fyi, a flash drive is neither, it is a solid-state device, meaning it has no moving parts.

hope that's helfpul this is my first answer :)

-SelArom

Answer 3

A floppy disk is portable, meaning that you insert it into the PC, write information to it, then remove it. A hard disk is permanent, typically residing inside of the computer. Floppy disks hold 1.44Megabytes of information (in the PC world anyway), hard disks hold much more, typically 80-100Gigabytes of information. The original floppy disk was flexible, and would "flop" when you carry it. "Floppies" have become obsolete for the most part as a CD is portable too, and can hold 800Megabytes of information.

Answer 4

Both are types of storage on a home computer, but one is removable. A floppy disk is so named because the data is stored on a sheet of magnetic material that is "floppy". These include 3.5" floppy disks, 5.25" floppy disks, and an assortment of other sizes that you probably do not have unless your computer is from the 1980s.

A hard disk is also known as a "Hard Drive". It is so named because the data is stored on metal plates that spin inside your computer. They are not meant to be used and you can't even see them unless you open the door on the computer box.

Answer 5

A magnetic disk on which you can store computer data. The term hard is used to distinguish it from a soft, or floppy, disk. Hard disks hold more data and are faster than floppy disks. A hard disk, for example, can store anywhere from 10 to more than 100 gigabytes, whereas most floppies have a maximum storage capacity of 1.4 megabytes.

A single hard disk usually consists of several platters. Each platter requires two read/write heads, one for each side. All the read/write heads are attached to a single access arm so that they cannot move independently. Each platter has the same number of tracks, and a track location that cuts across all platters is called a cylinder. For example, a typical 84 megabyte hard disk for a PC might have two platters (four sides) and 1,053 cylinders.

A soft magnetic disk. It is called floppy because it flops if you wave it (at least, the 5¼-inch variety does). Unlike most hard disks, floppy disks (often called floppies or diskettes) are portable, because you can remove them from a disk drive. Disk drives for floppy disks are called floppy drives. Floppy disks are slower to access than hard disks and have less storage capacity, but they are much less expensive. And most importantly, they are portable.

http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/f/floppy_disk.html
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/h/hard_disk.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_disk

Answer 6

A floppy disk is external disk you insert into a slot in your computer. A hard disk is internal and usually referred to as the hard drive.

Answer 7

A hard disk usually resides inside the computer where you can't get at it. It can hold a massive amount of idata. A floppy disk is a much smaller thing which you can push into and take out of the side or front of your computer, and it can only hold a small amount of data, maybe one song, for example. hope this helps. good luck.

Answer 8

For some years, the term "floppy disc" was used to refer to the small (1.44 Mbyte) discs in the "A" drive. Larger 5" discs were just called discs and have a larger capacity --- like 740 Mbytes. Most computers now come without a "floppy disc" drive. Your hard drive is an internal part of your computer and will probably store 40 Gbytes or more (my hard drive will store 300 Gbytes).

Answer 9

you're probably too young to remember a floppy disk.
large, flimsy, thin disks for the computers with the green screen
hard disk is the smaller version which is now out of style too

Answer 10

floppy has a minimum storage of 1.38/1.44 MB whereas hard disk has a range from 4 GB to 80 GB whereas CD has 700 MB floppy & hard disk are magnetic storage device Cd is a magneto-optical device