Floppy disk

A floppy disk, also called a diskette, is a disk storage medium composed of a disk of thin and flexible magnetic storagemedium, sealed in a rectangular plastic carrier lined with fabric that removes dust particles. Floppy disks are read and written by a floppy disk drive (FDD). Floppy disks, initially as 8-inch (200 mm) media and later in 5¼-inch (133 mm) and 3½-inch (90 mm) sizes, were a ubiquitous form of data storage and exchange from the mid-1970s well into the 2000s. By 2010, computer motherboards were rarely manufactured with floppy drive support; 3½-inch floppy disks can be used with an external USB floppy disk drive, but USB drives for 5¼-inch, 8-inch and non-standard diskettes are rare or non-existent, and those formats must usually be handled by old equipment.While floppy disk drives still have some limited uses, especially with legacy industrial computer equipment, they have been superseded by data storage methods with much greater capacity, such as USB flash drives, portable external hard disk drives, optical discs, memory cards and computer networks.