What is a Floppy Disk? What are the various types of floppy disk (FD)?

The floppy disk is one of the oldest external devices. It is a magnetic round disk enclosed in a plastic jacket which protects it against dust and other hazards. The plastic case has an opening which gives the read heads access to the magnetic surface when a floppy disk ejected from the drive, a spring slight the cover back to its original position. The floppy disk is available in 3.5 inch which can store 1.44 MB data.

The 3.5 inch floppy disk has two holes at the bottom of the disk. One enables the FD drive to identify low density and high density. The second is written protect switch of the FD.

Types of the floppies

1) Disk Type

Like a drive disk can also be differentiated based on.

a. Size

b. Soft/hard sector

c. Number of sides

d. storage

2) Size

Based on the size a floppy disk can be divided into two parts.

a. 5.52 inch disk

b. 3.5 inch disk

3) Soft/hard sector

A FD with a single index holes in known as soft sector disk.

Hard sectors FD have a hole for each sector to make the beginning of each new sector.

4) Based on sides

Based on the number of sides FD can be divided into two parts.

a. Single Side

b. Double Side

5) Storage Capacity

A FD can be divided into different two parts based on storage capacity of the disk.

a. 5.25 inch FD = 1.22 MB DSHD ( Double Side High Density)

b. 3.5 inch Disk = 1.44 MB DSHD ( Double Side High Density)