Some individuals and organizations continue to use older equipment to read or transfer data from floppy disks.įloppy disks were so common in late 20th-century culture that many electronic and software programs continue to use save icons that look like floppy disks well into the 21st century. USB drives for 5¼-inch, 8-inch, and other-size floppy disks are rare to non-existent. 3½-inch floppy disks can still be used with an external USB floppy disk drive. Subsequently, the 5¼-inch and then the 3½-inch became a ubiquitous form of data storage and transfer into the first years of the 21st century. The first floppy disks, invented and made by IBM, had a disk diameter of 8 inches (203.2 mm). Floppy disks store digital data which can be read and written when the disk is inserted into a floppy disk drive ( FDD) connected to or inside a computer or other device. A 3 + 1⁄ 2-inch floppy disk removed from its housingĪ floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, or a diskette) is an obsolete type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined with a fabric that removes dust particles from the spinning disk.

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