Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Floppy disk
A floppy disk is an out of date data storage medium that is composed of a disk of thin, flexible ("floppy") magnetic storage medium covered in a square or rectangular plastic shell. Floppy disks are read and written by a floppy disk drive or FDD, the initials of which should not be puzzled with "fixed disk drive", which is another term for a hard disk drive. Invented by IBM, floppy disks in 8-inch (200 mm), 5¼-inch (133⅓ mm), and the newest and most common 3½-inch (90 mm) formats enjoyed a lot of years as a popular and ever-present form of data storage and swap, from the mid-1970s to the late 1990s. They have now been outdated by flash and optical storage devices.
A floppy disk is an out of date data storage medium that is composed of a disk of thin, flexible ("floppy") magnetic storage medium covered in a square or rectangular plastic shell. Floppy disks are read and written by a floppy disk drive or FDD, the initials of which should not be puzzled with "fixed disk drive", which is another term for a hard disk drive. Invented by IBM, floppy disks in 8-inch (200 mm), 5¼-inch (133⅓ mm), and the newest and most common 3½-inch (90 mm) formats enjoyed a lot of years as a popular and ever-present form of data storage and swap, from the mid-1970s to the late 1990s. They have now been outdated by flash and optical storage devices.
