Floppy Disk Drives
Are they old hat?

Floppy disk drives (fdd) are hardware devices that allow you to store information on diskettes from your computer. By inserting a floppy disk into the drive you can save information for a backup copy or to transfer to another computer.

A floppy disk consists of a 3.5-inch square plastic cover over a flexible round and flat plastic disk. The FDD records information magnetically from its magnetic heads onto the diskette. A floppy holds 1.44 MB which equates to a few simple spreadsheets. When compared to CD’s, they hold roughly 1/600th of what a CD does!

When you need to get information circulated to others in a format that a lot of people can access, consider using a floppy drive as the device by which you reach everyone.



But when you think of the good old floppy disk, you may be thinking of an archaic tool that was once utilized but has now been replaced by CD-ROMs. But floppy disk drives still have their purpose.

When you compare and contrast the benefits of using a DVD duplicator or a CD duplicator or going floppy, you discover that the floppy could still be an arguable first option.

Floppy diskettes will hold information until you erase; but you can use these disks over and over again unlike CD’s or DVD’s. To rewrite a CD you must have a rewiteable CD, regular CD’s won’t work for this. CD’s wouldn’t be a good option if you need to use the storage media over and over for files that get updated a lot.

If you know you only have a small amount of information to copy, then you can use a low density floppy disk. A low density floppy disk holds 720kb of information. If this is all you need, then you would be wise to use the low density floppy disk over using a high density floppy disk which has the standard 1.44MB of disk space.

The reason a floppy disk can be relied upon year after year, primarily, is because of its price per unit. The floppy disk has been around so long but it cannot compete with the CD or DVD in terms of storage space, but on price point it wins hands down. It is because of this that the floppy disk survives still and people still use them in certain circumstances, for good reason.

At only about 30 to 40 cents per copy, a floppy disc will run you a lot less per unit than either CD or DVD which can be $1-$5 per unit.

Just like the low density disk, when you know that you don't need as much storage space as a CD or DVD provides, and want the most affordable vehicle for your information distribution, a floppy disk is the obvious choice.

You can buy diskettes that are preformatted (already formatted) or the cheaper unformatted disks (need formatting) almost anywhere you find computer accessories.






All sorts of people used floppy disks for all sorts of things. Students use them for homework, lawyers use them for transporting files, administrators use them for copying files, mortgage brokers use them to show clients spreadsheets and everyone can use them to clear space on the hard drive.

Floppy disks remain as popular as they always were and continue to sell in record numbers, plus all computers can be configured to include a floppy disk drive, either external or internal drives are readily available and easy to install. Our hardware installation guide can help you if you want to install the parts yourself.

So if you ever doubted the effectiveness of having a fdd, then now is the time to re-consider.






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