Floppy Disk

A floppy disk is a data storage medium that is composed of a disk of thin, flexible ("floppy") magnetic storage medium encased in a square or rectangular plastic shell.

Floppy disks are read and written by a floppy disk drive or FDD, the initials of which should not be confused with "fixed disk drive", which is another term for a (nonremovable) type of hard disk drive. Invented by IBM, floppy disks in 8-inch (200 mm), 5¼-inch (133.35 mm), and 3½-inch (90 mm) formats enjoyed many years as a popular and ubiquitous form of data storage and exchange, from the mid-1970s to the late 1990s. While floppy disk drives still have some limited uses, especially with legacy industrial computer equipment,[2] they have now been largely superseded by USB flash drives, external hard disk drives, CDs, DVDs, and memory cards.