Floppy Disk
FLOPPY DISK
What is a floppy disk?
What are its functions?
How does it work?
Floppy disks work in a similar way to cassette tapes and the magnetic strip on a credit card. The floppy disk is constructed of plastic that is embedded with a thin iron oxide coating on both sides. The head of the floppy disk drive easily manipulates the magnetic coating on the disk to store information. Information is recorded on circular tracks and triangular sections. A special head in the drive erases the area to be written before recording occurs. This head is wider than the head used for recording and reading information to ensure recorded information is not contaminated from previous information recorded nearby.
Different types of floppy disk
Floppy disk drives are available in different sizes. The floppy disk drive shares the name with the size of the floppy disk that it uses. For example, the floppy disk drive that uses the 3.5 inch floppy disk is called the 3.5 inch floppy disk drive.
5.25 Inch Floppy Disk Drive
Older systems used the 5.25 inch floppy disk drive to read and write data to the 5.25 inch floppy disk. This drive has a lever on the front of the drive that must be turned clockwise, to lock the floppy disk in after inserting the disk in the drive. You must turn the lever anti-clockwise to remove the floppy disk from the drive.
3.5 Inch Floppy Disk Drive
The 3.5 inch floppy disk drive can read and write data to the 3.5 inch floppy disk.
The 3.5 inch floppy drive spins the floppy disk at a speed of 300 rotations per minute. This enables the floppy to be formatted with 80 tracks on each side of the disk. Each track is separated into 18 sectors. The sector can hold 512 bytes. The 3.5 inch floppy disk drive also has a button that is used to remove the floppy disk from the drive. The 3.5 inch floppy had a high density and could hold 720 KB of data.