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Also known as a floppy, a floppy disk
was
originally created in the 1960s and 1970s to help
help have an alternative to buying hard drives
that were extremely expensive at the time and were not thought of as
something to be used with a standard computer.
8" Disk - The first disk was introduced in
1971.
The disk was 8" in diameter with a magnetic coating, enclosed in a cardboard case
with the capacity of one megabyte. Conversely to hard disks, the heads actually touch the disk, like
in a cassette or video player that actually wears the media down
over time. 5.25" Disk - Created in 1976 which first started with disks only
with 160KB. 5.25" Single Side - 160KB
5.25" Double Side - 360KB
5.25" Double Side High Density - 1.2MB
3.5" Disk - Created by IBM in
1987, which
even today are still commonly used. Most 3 1/2" newer disks have a capacity of up to
1.44MB. 3.5" Double Density - 720KB
3.5" High Density - 1.44MB (See
document CH001135 for why it's 1.44MB)
3.5" Extended Density (IBM ONLY) - 2.88MB
Below is a graphic of a floppy diskette. As can be seen by the
below picture, this particular diskette is clear, which enables you to
see inside of the diskette. You can notice that the floppy has a
circular cloth that is located on both sides of the floppy; this
cloth helps clean and protect the magnetic disk within the diskette.
- Additional information
and help about floppies can be found on our
floppy page.
Also see: Floppy definitions,
Floppy disk drive
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