What are Floppy Disk Drives?
Floppy disk drives are a type of device for computers. They allow you to either read or save data on a diskette, which you can remove for storage or transport.
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Features
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Floppy disk drives can be attached to a computer externally with a cable or mounted inside of a computer. Regardless of location, floppy disk drives usually contain a pair of read/write heads, a clamp that keeps inserted diskettes properly positioned and a sensor that detects the first track, or starting position, on an inserted diskette.
Types
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Manufacturers have produced three main versions of standard floppy disc drives. The earliest type was the largest and required 8-inch diskettes. The second type was smaller and required 5.25-inch diskettes. The third type was the smallest and most-successful commercial version, requiring 3.5-inch diskettes.
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History
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The 8-inch floppy disc drives introduced in the early 1970s could only retrieve information from diskettes, which held no more than 100 kilobytes of data. Floppy disk drives capable of reading and writing data emerged in 1973, and the storage capacity of diskettes increased steadily to approximately 1.5 megabytes for standard 3.5-inch diskettes.
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References
Resources
- Photo Credit floppy disk image by Aleksandr Ugorenkov from Fotolia.com
