A Floppy Disk is a storage device that was very popular between the late 1970s and early 2000s. Floppy disk is named as floppy, diskette or disk. The device which is used to read and write data into and from floppy disk named Floppy Disk Drive.
Floppy disk shape is similar to the CD or DVD but smaller. Floppy disk uses magnetic methods in order to read and write data into the magnetic medium.
Floppy Disk History
Floppy disks are developed in the late 1960s but became commercially available in 1971 as a component for IBM computers.
- In 1976, Shugart Associates introduced 5,25-inch floppy disk drives.
- During time 8-inch floppy disks are replaced with the 5,25-inch floppy disks.
- The most common 5,25-inch floppy disks were about 360 kB in size.
- In 1984, IBM introduced 1.2 MB 5,25-inch floppy disks.
- IBM started producing and using 3,5 inch and 720 kB floppy disks.
- In 1986 IBM produced the most popular floppy disks providing 1.44 MB size and 3,5-inch dimension.
- In the early 2000s, floppy disk manufacturing was almost abandoned where USB flash memory became popular with superior features.
Floppy Disk Size
During its history floppy disk sizes are decreased. The first commercial and common floppy disks had 8 and 5,25-inch diameter size but later 3,5-inch floppy disks became popular.
8-inch Floppy Disk
The first most common floppy disk size was 8-inch. As you expect it was very big according to others but it was acceptable during its time between the 1970s. With the advancement of the disk plate technology an 8-inch floppy disk can store 1.2 MB data.
5,25-inch Floppy Disk
5,25-inch floppy disk is a transition model where it provide 360 KB disk.
3,5-inch Floppy Disk
The 3,5-inch floppy disks are the most popular and recent version of the floppy disks. It became very popular from the early 1980s to the 2000s. These type of floppy disks generally contains a label on it in order to write some text about the floppy disk.
Floppy Disk Prices
With the advancement of the USB Flash memory which is superior to floppy disks, the floppy disks lost their market share. Currently, floppy disks are sold as a 10, 50, or 100 pack. Generally Verbatim, 3M produces these disks.
- Verbatim 10 pack floppy disks are priced as $9.95
- 3M 50 pack floppy disks are priced as $59.95
- Noname 50 pack recycled-white label floppy disks are priced at $19.
