Floppy disk (external storage)

floppy disk

  The subject of this article is floppy disks, which are computer hardware. For the company and organization named floppy disk, see floppy disk (company) .

Also called [1] in Taiwan , it is a kind of disk storage , the main part is a thin and soft magnetic storage medium disk, the disk is packaged in a rectangular plastic shell, and the inner lining is fiber fabric for cleaning dust. Reading and writing floppy disks requires the help of a floppy disk drive (English: FDD for short ).

disk

8", 5.25" and 3.5" disks
R & D date	1969 (8 inches) 1976 (5¼ inches) 1984 (3½ inches)
developer	IBM的David Noble
connected to	The controller passes: wiring

Common aliases for "floppy disk"
Chinese mainland
Taiwan
Hong Kong and Macau

The first floppy disk was developed by IBM in 1971, with a diameter of 8 inches . With the development of hardware technology and the needs of use, a 5.25-inch floppy disk was derived and widely used in Apple II , IBM PC and other compatible computers. Apple began to use 3.5-inch floppy disks in Mac machines in 1984. At this time, the capacity was less than 1MB. Later, it was replaced by Sony 's 3.5-inch floppy disks with a capacity of 1.44MB. This kind of floppy disks was popular in the 1980s and 1990s. In the late 20th century, the 3.5-inch floppy drive was still one of the popular computer equipment, but it gradually became outdated and eliminated after entering the 21st century [2] .

develop

The 3.5-inch 1.44MB floppy disk was popular for more than two decades

8-inch, 5¼-inch and 3½-inch floppy drives (Floppy Disk Drives)

5¼" floppy drive

3½-inch floppy drives for desktops

3½ diskettes disassembled

Although the floppy disk is no longer used, many software still use the floppy disk as the icon for the "Save Data" function button

In 1981, Sony Corporation of Japan launched the 3.5-inch floppy disk for the first time. With the development of hardware processing technology, the size of the floppy disk gradually decreased and the capacity gradually increased. Floppy disks were still one of the must-have devices for computers until the 2000s, because they were needed to make computer boot disks and update the BIOS . However, due to the limitations of the floppy disk reading method, the magnetic head must touch the disk when reading and writing the disk data, instead of hanging to read and write like a hard disk, so the floppy disk has been difficult to meet the large and high-speed data storage. The storage stability is also poor. A normal floppy disk is easily affected by the external environment, such as heat, moisture, and repeated reading and writing, which will shorten its life. Although there were many upgraded products such as zip Drive , SuperDisk (LS-120) and Jaz Drive , it was difficult to solve the direct contradiction between compatibility and speed capacity at the same time. With the application of mobile storage interfaces such as optical discs , USB flash drives , and mobile hard drives, 5.25-inch and 8-inch floppy disks are extremely rare, and the use of 3.5-inch floppy disks is gradually being eliminated.

From popular to eliminated

3.5-inch floppy disks were very popular in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1996, there were as many as 5 billion floppy disks in use worldwide. Until the emergence of HDD , CD-ROM , and USB storage devices, sales of floppy disks gradually declined.

In 1998, Apple launched the first-generation iMac , the first computer to abandon the floppy drive. Dell's Dimension desktop computer, launched in 2003, also dropped support for floppy drives. Since then, fewer and fewer new computers have floppy drives.

In February 2007, the chairman of the largest computer retail chain in Europe announced that it would stop selling floppy drives and floppy disks. In September 2009, Sony Corporation announced that it had completely discontinued the production of 3.5-inch floppy disk drive products in the first half of the year, and it is expected that the inventory will be emptied within the year to completely withdraw from the market. However, Sony also announced at the same time that after the floppy disk drive product line is discontinued, the company will still retain the floppy disk product line and continue to manufacture and sell it.

In April 2010, Sony Corporation announced that it would stop producing 3.5-inch floppy disks in March 2011 due to the sharp decline in demand for floppy disks due to the popularity of large-capacity storage devices such as DVDs and USB flash drives . Most manufacturers in Japan have discontinued the production of 3.5-inch floppy discs, and floppy drives have almost ceased production [3] . The computer cases introduced into the market in the future no longer have a floppy disk drive interface, and the floppy disk drive has been replaced by USB / IEEE 1394 / Thunderbolt / PCMCIA / SATA connectors and card readers with hot-swappable features . At the same time, the mainstream status of floppy disks in storage media has also been replaced by mobile hard disks, flash drives , and memory cards .

current usage

In the 2010s, although most (all) major manufacturers have announced that they will no longer produce floppy disk drives, there are still manufacturers that launch traditional internal or external floppy disk drives with USB interface to meet market demand. Therefore, it still occupies a place in the market, because many enterprises , government agencies, and research institutes still need to use floppy drives to transfer data files in some special environments such as older computers or industrial computers .

kinds

• 8 inch floppy disk
  • Fixed magnetic area (hard-sectored), each magnetic area has an optical guide hole, and a hole is added between the two holes to identify the first magnetic area
  • For soft-sectored, there is only one optical guide hole per circle, and the allocation of sectors is determined and judged by the software itself. (The future 5.25-inch and 3.5-inch floppy disks are basically soft disks)

• 5.25" floppy disk
  • Standard MFM format for IBM PC and compatible computers
    • 160kB, 40 tracks and 8 sectors on one side
    • 180kB, 40 tracks and 9 sectors on one side
    • 320kB, double-sided 40 tracks 8 sectors
    • 360kB, double-sided 40 tracks 9 sectors
    • 1.2MB, double-sided 80-track 15-sector
  • private encoding format
    • A proprietary encoding format used by the Disk II of the Apple II computer.

• 3.5" floppy disk
  • 360kB, 80 tracks and 9 sectors on one side
  • 720kB, double-sided 80 tracks 9 sectors
  • 1.44MB, double-sided 80-track 18-sector
    • 1.68MB or other capacity, a higher-capacity format created on a 1.44MB device; double-sided 80-track 21-sector or other
  • 2.88MB, double-sided 80 tracks and 36 sectors

• High capacity special floppy disk
  • ZIP
    • ZIP100, 100MB each
    • ZIP250, 250MB each
  • SuperDisk
    • LS-120, 120MB each
    • LS-240, 240MB each