What are floppy disk drives?

Floppy disk drives make it possible for the computer user to store data. A floppy disk drive (fdd) reads and writes data to a floppy disk.

Originally, these drives were the "way to go" for data to be added to computers until cd drives were introduced and became popular. It was a very important computer part for many years.

When used, the floppy's function could either be to save data for a backup copy or to transfer data to another computer.

What is a floppy disk?

A floppy disk is a removable data storage medium which has a limited storage capacity. It consists of a thin 3.5-inch square metal disk that contains a flat, round, plastic, flexible disk that is coated on both sides with magnetic material.

When the ‘floppy’ (as it is sometimes called) is inserted into the drive, it spins at a high speed while data is recorded to it on one or both sides.

Floppy disks are inexpensive but have slow access speed. It normally holds 1.4 megabytes (MB) of data and is also called a 'diskette'.

The case of the 3.5-inch square disk protects the flexible disk inside.

Floppy Disk Drives – History

These drives originally used 8-inch disks but they eventually got smaller and used a 5.25-inch disk. Then in the 1980s, a 3.5-inch, 1.4 megabyte (MB) capacity floppy disk was introduced by Sony. This is the floppy that is known by today’s computer user.

Write Protect:

The 3.5-inch disk has a ‘write protect’ slider that enables or disables writing to the disk. 'Write-protection' prevents data on your disks from being overwritten or changed.

Moving the slider to expose the tiny square slot in the diskette 'write protects' the diskette; while closing the slot, it disables 'write protection'.

Floppy disks – Formatting:

Before using a floppy disk, you should ensure that it is formatted. This prepares the diskette for writing. You could either buy them pre-formatted or format them yourself.

Floppy Disks – Low Density vs. High Density:

3.5" floppy diskettes come in low and high density formats. The density is the amount of space that the diskette has for storing data.

A low density diskette is for storing small amounts of information. They can store approximately 720 KB (kilobytes) of data while high density (HD) diskettes will store 1.44 MB (megabytes) of data. Low density diskettes have now become obsolete.

Floppy disk drives are still important

Although some computers no longer have a floppy disk drive, these drives are still valuable and important. Here are some advantages:

• A single blank CD will hold approx 650 MB of data; that is more than 400 floppy disks!
• Early versions of the Microsoft Office Suite used to be stored on approximately 32 floppy disks! A single CD is now used to store the entire suite along with its manuals.
• Using only the floppy disks as your storage medium is risky since they are more prone to corruption.
• Reading or writing to a floppy disk is a slow process as compared to a CD.
• The floppy disk is sometimes used as a means for transferring data between non-network computers. But, because of its limited capacity, it is being replaced with zip disks, CDs, DVDs, etc.
• You will be unable to format a 720 kilobytes (KB) floppy disk using Windows XP since only 1.44 megabytes (MB) diskettes are supported by XP. 720 KB formatted floppy diskettes can be read by Windows XP.
• Regardless of the country - Imperial or Metric standards - the floppy is always referred to in Imperial dimensions.
• The floppy disk 'icon' has become a standard in many toolbars as the symbol used for saving data.

Caring your floppy disks

• To prevent loss of data, never use a floppy disk near magnetic fields including telephones.
• Never expose disks to excessive temperatures.
• Always keep diskettes in a storage container when not being used.
• Keep disks away from food and drink.

Final Thoughts

Although most new computers no longer have floppy drives, if you are building your own cheap computer, I would recommend that you install a floppy disk drive..... It just might come in 'handy'!