A Floppy Disk (or diskette) is a legacy magnetic storage medium that was the standard for moving and backing up computer data from the 1970s through the late 1990s.
It consists of a thin, flexible ("floppy") magnetic disk sealed inside a protective plastic enclosure. Unlike the CD, which uses lasers, a floppy disk works by using a mechanical arm with a magnetic head to read and write data directly onto the spinning surface.
The most widely known floppy disk was the 3.5” one.
While floppy disks were revolutionary for being rewritable and portable, they were eventually replaced by CDs and USB drives for several reasons:
It consists of a thin, flexible ("floppy") magnetic disk sealed inside a protective plastic enclosure. Unlike the CD, which uses lasers, a floppy disk works by using a mechanical arm with a magnetic head to read and write data directly onto the spinning surface.
The most widely known floppy disk was the 3.5” one.
While floppy disks were revolutionary for being rewritable and portable, they were eventually replaced by CDs and USB drives for several reasons:
- Low Capacity: As files (like photos and software) grew in size, the 1.44 MB limit became too small
- Fragility: The magnetic surface was easily damaged by dust, magnets, or heat.
- Slow Speed: Data transfer was significantly slower than optical or flash storage.
Despite being obsolete in modern computing, the 3.5-inch floppy disk lives on globally as the universal "Save" icon in almost every software application.
