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The floppy disk was originally developed at IBM for the purpose of loading microcode RAM in their System 370 computers introduced in 1971. As the disk would only be in the drive at most once a day for no more than a couple of minutes then returned to its protective sleeve, there was no concern about wear or exposure to dirt as there was with earlier removable hard discs.

When they were first adapted to inexpensive data storage on microcomputers, while these issues now became important nothing was done originally to address them. The primary concern for years was only increasing the data capacity and keeping the cost low.

The original IBM 8 inch floppy disks only had a capacity of 80KB, the first microcomputer 8 inch floppy disks increased this to 128KB which was then increased by spacing the tracks closer, doubling the density, and by making use of both sides to: 256KB, 512KB, and finally 1MB.

More compact microcomputer 5.25 inch floppy disks were introduced initially had a capacity of 98.5 KB, which was then by a variety of improvements and use of different formatting increased to 110 KB, 360 KB, 720 KB, and finally 1.2 MB.

Both the 8 and 5.25 floppy disks provided no protection to the media when outside the drive unless the user put them back in their sleeves (which often got lost). Also the "case" enclosing the floppy disk was itself flexible and this could allow the media to be damaged if it was flexed too much.

A new microcomputer 3.5 inch floppy disk was introduced that addressed these issues by using a hard case with a shutter to cover the media when the disk was outside the drive. The most common capacity was 1.44 MB.

However the floppy disks are becoming obsolete as Flash based storage devices (e.g. USB, SD, microSD, CompactFlash) have become widely available at low cost and much higher capacity than floppy disks. Flash based storage devices do not have the problems of wear and dirt that have always challenged the Floppy disks (however they do undergo electrical wearout that limits their lifetime).

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Q: What are the advantages and disadvantages of a floppy disk?
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