Floppy Disk Drives
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- What is a floppy drive?
- What does "interchangeability" mean?
- What is the difference between solid aluminum
casting of the floppy disk drive and assembled metal chassis of other floppy
disk drives?
- Why is interchangeability important?
What is a floppy drive?
Floppy drive is short for floppy disk drive and is used as the primary data
transfer device. It can read, write and store data to the removable floppy
disks. A floppy disk is a soft magnetic disk. A floppy disk is slower to access
than a hard disk and has less storage capacity, but it is much less expensive an
most importantly it is portable – it can be removed from the disk drive.
Floppies come in two basic sizes:
5 ¼ - inch: The common size for PCs made before 1987. This type of floppy
is generally capable of storing between 100K and 1.2MB of data. The most common
sizes are 360K and 1.2MB.
3 ½ - inch: Floppy is something of a misnomer for these disks, as they
are encased in a rigid envelope. Despite their small size, microfloppies have a
larger storage capacity than their 5 ¼ cousins – from 400K to 1.4MB of data. The
most common sizes for PCs are 720K (double-density) and 1.44MB (high-density).
What does "interchangeability" mean?
When referring to removable data storage products, interchangeability is
defined as the process of shifting the storage media from one system to another
without destroying or affecting the data. This means that the data contained on
the storage media must still be readable and must not have been affected by a
sudden change of temperature, a long period of time between systems, or other
factors in the environment.
What is the difference between solid aluminum casting of the
floppy disk drive and assembled metal chassis of other floppy disk drives?
The solid aluminum casting floppy disk drive provides a stable platform for
both high and low density operations. This type of FDD is assembled into the PC
drive bay, and it gives the system a "little-to-no-distortion" read and write
capability.
Assembled metal chassis is another type of casing used for FDD. This type of
FDD relies on installation and is susceptible to non-uniform expansion as the
system heats up, which may cause the drive to become incapable of reading
diskettes.
Why is interchangeability important?
For removable data storage products, interchangeability is key because users
need to be confident that they can move media from one system to another and
still be assured the data will be readable. It is also important that given the
changing temperature of the system, from the time it is turned on to the time it
is turned off, diskettes can be written at any one time and can be read at any
later time.
Using the solid aluminum casting floppy disk drive gives drives a stable
platform for both high and low density operation. When fastened within the
computer drive bays, little-to-no-distortion will be found that may lead to
unreliable read/write performance; thus interchangeability is assured. The
assembled metal chassis can bend on installation. These other drives are also
susceptible to non-uniform expansion as the system heats up, which can cause the
drive to be unable to read diskettes written when the system was cold or vice
versa.
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