Floppy disk drive refers to an internal or external device that is used to read and write data to and from magnetic, disk-like storage medium.

Due to their limited storage capacity and the advent of USB flash drives, computer manufacturers are not integrating floppy disk drives into their machines as often as they used to, but they are still a very handy storage device.

Internal floppy disk drives

Internal floppy disk drives, although becoming less and less common in modern computers, are normally found at the front of a desktop machine, or, at the side of portable computers, such as laptops.

The internal disk drive is very straightforward to install into a desktop machine and most desktop/tower computer cases include a space (drive bay) for these devices to reside.

External floppy disk drives

The external floppy disk drive is widely available from computer stores and generally comes with a USB interface, allowing them to be connected easily to any desktop or portable computer.

The floppy diskette

These days the most common media for these devices is the 3½" floppy diskette, which, confusingly, is actually made of durable plastic and fairly sturdy. The term 'floppy' was given to these devices many years ago when it utilised the 5¼" diskettes, which were actually bendable!

The 3.5" floppy diskette has a storage capacity of either 720KB for single-sided diskettes, or 1.44MB for the more prominent double-sided diskettes.

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