Floppy Disk

A floppy disk, or diskette, is a disk storage medium composed of a disk of thin and flexible magnetic storage medium, sealed in a rectangular plastic carrier lined with fabric that removes dust particles. They are read and written by a floppy disk drive (FDD).

$new_link, "initially as 8-inch (200 mm) media and later in 5.25-inch (133 mm) and 3.5-inch (89 mm) sizes, were a ubiquitous form of data storage and exchange from the mid-1970s well into the first decade of the 21st century.

By 2010, computer motherboards were rarely manufactured with floppy drive support; 3 1⁄2" floppies could be used as an external USB drive, but 5 1⁄4", 8", and non-standard drives could only be handled by old equipment.

While floppy disk drives still have some limited uses, especially with legacy industrial computer equipment, they have been superseded by data storage methods with much greater capacity, such as USB flash drives, portable external hard disk drives, optical discs, memory cards, and computer networks.

Read more about Floppy Disk:  History, Sizes

Other articles related to "floppy disk, disks, disk":

Floppy Disk - Sizes - Sizes, Performance and Capacity
... Floppy disk size is often referred to in inches, even in countries using metric and though the size is defined in metric ... The ANSI specification of 3 1⁄2-inch disks is entitled in part "90 mm (3.5 in)" though 90 mm is closer to 3.54 inches ... Historical sequence of floppy disk formats Disk format Year introduced Formatted Storage capacity Marketed capacity 8-inch IBM 23FD (read-only) 1971 79.75 KB ? 8-inch Memorex 650 1972 ...

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