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Floppy Disk Drives
Floppy disks are an outdated form of magnetic data storage. Questions about floppy disk drives and floppy disks themselves belong here.
768 Questions
How many volts for a floppy disk drive?
Drives which are 5.25 inch, 3.5 inch, or 3 inch use +5 volts and (for the 5.25 inch drives) +12 volts. 8-inch drives use +5V, +24V, and in many cases 110VAC 60Hz for the spindle motors.
What is the capacity of a 3.5 floppy disc?
A few years ago, before there were CDs and USB flashdrives, data to be stored on removable media was stored on "floppies" the most recent of these was square three and a half inches on an edge (hence the 3.5 name) about one tenth of an inch thick stiff plastic case surrounding a flimsy (hence the name "floppy") magnetically covered mylar disc. These were most commonly formatted to hold 1.44Mb (there are a huge number of formats, sizes etc. for removable media look it up on Wikipedia)
When did laser disks come out?
Laserdisc technology, using a transparent disc, was invented by David Paul Gregg in 1958 (and patented in 1961 and 1990).
Does CDs have a large storage capacities?
Formerly they had, but nowadays when compared to pendrives they have a small storage capacity, do not surpassing 700 MB. The tendency of storing devices is directed to pendrives due to their inumerous advantages.
How much does a 3.5 floppy disk hold?
A standard 3.5" floppy disk holds significantly less than a gigabyte. As a fraction, a floppy holds about 1/711 of a gigabyte.
root directory
FDD is an acronym for Floppy Disk Drive. For a short time, external floppy drives were available with special-purpose connectors. This was quickly superseded by USB ports.
What is the capacity of a hard disk?
this changes with time. currently average storage of a hard disk is about 250 GB when purchasing a new computer. The highest amount of space I have seen on a new hard drive is 1.5 TB (that's 1024 GB * 1.5) and the smallest I have seen is down to a few MB (1024 MB = 1 GB) but that's for a very very old hard disk.
To write to a floppy disk is it necessary for the write-protect notch to be open or closed?
For you to write to a disk, the write-protect notch must be closed.
Why are diskettes becoming obsolete?
The small capacity of floppy disks, compared to the ever-expanding size of files, makes them impractical for most uses. Plus, there are many much better alternatives available (USB drives, CD-R, etc.). Diskette drives are becoming rare on Windows computers, as well. Macintosh computers were just ahead of their time, as usual!
Can data be stored and received on a floppy disk?
Data can be stored on a floppy disk, since that is what they are designed for. As for whether it can be "received" on one, that is a pretty vague question, as it doesn't address HOW the data is received.
What power connector attaches a floppy drive?
your power supply has a small plug attach to it with several larger ones that go to your cdrom and hard drive it will fit in to the back of your floppy
Which disk holds the most data DVD or CD-RW or Floppy or CD-R or CD-ROM?
DVD is the largest of the 'hard media' as:
- DVD 4.7GB / 9.5Gb (dual layer)
- CD 780 MB (largest currently available)
- Floppy: 320KB / 512KB / 1.2MB (Magnetic Media)
Hard Disk's (Magnetic Media) have much larger sizes, currently the largest produced single drive is 2 TB (Terabyte: 2,000 Gigabyte - at the time of this answer). One 1 Terabyte drive equals 425.53 4.7 GB DVD's.
Please note that this does not include "Server" or "NAS" storage solutions that simply combine multiple drives into a single access point (Datacenter) - those are virtually unlimited in size (limited only by how much storage you can afford to add to the unit).
Currently the whole history of everything in all languages of the Human Race is estimated to be 50 Petabyte's; the largest (known) datacenter in the world is Teradata, Database 12 at 50 Petabytes. (1 Petabyte = 1,024 Terabytes == 1,048,676 Gigabytes or 212,765.96 DVD's).
India is starting a server farm in which there is supposed to be 1 googlebyte of storage possible which is a quintillion petabytes.
1 PB = 1024 TB
1TB = 1024 GB
1 GB = 1024 MB
1MB = 1024 KB
1 KB = 1024 Bytes
What is the difference between a floppy disk and a floppy drive?
In some ways, they are kind-of the same. But there are significant differences. Consider that data organization on a computer has been fashioned after what you might find in an office:
An office may have a bunch of related papers. In a computer file system, those papers would be individually identified as files.
The papers are stored in a folder. On a computer, files are stored in a folder, or, directory.
The office folder is stored, along with other related folders, in a drawer of a filing cabinet. In a computer, a drive is analogous to the drawer of the office filing cabinet. The drive, usually identified by a unique letter of the English alphabet, is a volume, or partition. Files and folders in the "folder" of the drive itself are said to be in the root folder.
The office filing cabinet may have multiple drawers. Together, the drawers form a filing cabinet. In a computer, a drive may be one of several volumes (partitions) available on a physical disk. So, the disk itself may be thought of as the filing cabinet.
A drive and a folder on a computer have these things in common:
- Both can store other folders within.
- Both can store files within.
- Both can only be one type of file system.
- Both can have a recorded date of creation.
A drive and a computer folder have these differences:
- The drive is the top-level entity of a disk volume. A folder always has a parent folder, but a drive does not.
- Drives are usually identified by a single letter of the English alphabet. A folder can have most any name, according to the conventions of the file system.
- Folders can have file attributes (like Read-Only, Hidden, Modified Date, etc.) that a drive itself cannot have.
- A drive can have a volume label that identifies the volume. The volume label does not need to be unique. Some drives can also have additional properties, like a quasi-original serial number.
- A drive's letter must be unique in the system to which it's attached (mounted). A folder must have a unique name in the folder it's in, but there can be any number of identically-named folders in other folders.
- A folder (or file) cannot exist without a drive, but the reverse is not true.
- As a drive represents a complete volume (partition), the file system's organization of data relies on it. The entire structure of all files and folders on a drive is stored internally as a part of the drive's data. Formatting a drive initializes this data structure, destroying it if it already exists. You cannot format a folder.
- The "folder" representing a drive is called the root folder (of the drive). No regular folder can be addressed as such. The root folder cannot be deleted, but all of the files and folders in the root folder can be deleted.
- A drive can be released from the system it's attached to, which is called dismounting it. A folder cannot be dismounted, only deleted.
- Some file systems allow mounting a drive as a sub-folder of another drive. In this case, the mounted drive's root folder logically becomes the sub-folder of the other drive. But in reality, the two volumes remain physically separate. One of the volumes can be destroyed or corrupted without affecting the other. The volume that's mounted can still be addressed separately by a unique drive letter.
- A host system may require a special device driver in order to access a drive. A folder is a figment of the drive's file system, and requires no drivers.
To write-protect (stop deletion, overwriting, or adding to) a 3 1/4" floppy disk, slide the tiny plastic tab at the back of the disk (opposite the shutter), so that it is open.
To protect a disk from damage, keep it in a dry, temperature-controlled environment free of dust and smoke. Avoid any contact with strong magnetic field (sudh as on top of stereo speakers).
How many characters can an average floppy disk hold?
A standard floppy disk (those still found today) is 1.44MB in size. There's 1024 kilobytes in a megabyte, and 1024 bytes in a kilobyte. If the size was exact usable space, it would be 1.44 * 1024 * 1024, which is 1509949 bytes. Since it's not the usable size, the USABLE size of a floppy is 1440 * 1024, or 1474560 bytes. Each ASCII character is one byte, so a floppy can hold many characters.
These days (2012) you will not find many floppy disks (although just a couple of years ago we had to order special floppy drives for a server because some software would only be installed if it booted from Drive: A a floppy).
There were 8 inch and 5 inch and 31/2 inch floppy disks which were common.
The latest (diskettes) were the smallest and were protected by a hard plastic casing. Inside a thin Mylar disk coated with a magnetic surface stored the 1.44 Mb that was the capacity of most diskettes.
Hard disks have one or more aluminium or glass disks coated with magnetic surfaces. These hold much more information and now (2012) there are units that can store 3Tb or more.
When driving slower than the flow of traffic?
When you are in a country that drives on the right, then generally you should drive in the right lane; the left lane is for passing.
When you are in a country that drives on the left, then generally you should drive in the left lane; the right hand lane is for passing only.
How much memory can a floppy disk hold?
There have been several different types of disks that have been called "floppy"
1.44 megabytes could be stored on the most recent (3 1/2") floppies which were encased in hard plastic.
Earlier there were both 5 1/4" and 8" floppies these had a smaller capacities, for example of 360 Kb or 140 Kb respectively
A 3 and half inch high-density floppy disk has how many entries in the root directory?
224 for a 3 1/2 inch floppy
Is there a way to get information off a old floppy disk?
Floppy disks are an old technology and very prone to corruption in a number of circumstances. If the disk is placed near any magnetic interference (speakers, monitor) if a disk gets to hot, or is exposed to light then data on the disk can become unreadable. It is very unlikely that data on a corrupt floppy disk can be recovered.
It is generally considered that the use of floppy disks for day to day file storage is a thing of the past. It would be advised you remove any data you have on floppy disc to a new storage format such as flash memory.
How many cm is the width of a floppy disk?
Floppy disks have been around since 1971
3 sizes, older to newer...
8 inches
5 1/4 inches
3 1/2 inches
