Differences B/w Floppy Disk & Hard Disk In Tabular Form

A Floppy disk is also known as a diskette.  Both floppy and hard disks are permanent storage devices used in the computer system. These are also called non-volatile memories. The differences between a floppy disk and a hard disk in tabular form are discussed in detail. For more information, let’s read the article.

Floppy disk or Diskette

It is also called a diskette. It consists of a thin plastic disk coated with magnetic material. This disk is enclosed in a plastic jacket. It was designed by IBM in the early 1970s. Due to its portability, it can easily be removed from one computer and inserted into another computer.

differences between floppy disk and hard disk

It can only store a small amount of data. The data access speed of the floppy disk is slower than the hard disk. It is an inexpensive storage media.

Normally, the common size of the floppy disk is 3 ½ inches. Its capacity is 1.44MB. A shell encloses the circular piece of plastic on a 3 ½ inch diskette.

A metal piece metal coats the reading and writing region. It is called a shutter. The shutter opens to expose the surface of the disk when the disk is inserted into a disk drive.

The data stored in it can be read with the floppy disk drive. The read/write head in the disk drive is used to read and write data. Floppy disk drives are also downward compatible. It means they can use earlier media.

Hard disk

differences between floppy disk and hard diskIt is a type of magnetic disk. A hard disk is fixed on the system unit, so it is also said as a fixed disk. It is made up of a number of circular disks called platters.

The data is stored on platters. The magnetic material inside the hard disk coats the platters. Hard disk offers a large storage facility. It is faster than floppy disks.

It works as a primary media for storing data and programs. The capacity of the computer hard disk is from 2 to 500 GB and more.

How Hard Drive Works?

A hard disk drive (HDD) is an information storage tool that uses magnetic storage to store and retrieve virtual facts using one or more inflexible rapidly rotating disks (platters) lined with a magnetic cloth.

The platters are engaged with magnetic heads, usually arranged on a shifting actuator arm, which studies and writes statistics to the platter surfaces.

Data is accessed in a random-get entry to the manner, which means that man or woman blocks of records can be saved or retrieved in any order and now not most effective sequentially. HDDs are a sort of non-volatile storage, maintaining saved records even if powered off.

Brought via IBM in 1956, HDDs have become the dominant secondary storage tool for well-known-cause computers with the aid of the early 1960s. Greater than two hundred companies have produced HDDs historically.

Although after great industry consolidation most contemporary devices are synthetic through Seagate, Toshiba, and Western Digital.

The primary traits of an HDD are its capability and performance. Ability is laid out in unit prefixes similar to powers of 1000. A 1-terabyte (TB) force has a potential of 1,000 gigabytes (GB is where 1 gigabyte = 1 billion bytes).

The two most unusual shape factors for Latest  HDDs are 3.5 inches, for desktop computers, and a 2.5-inch, often for laptops. HDDs are linked to systems by using popular interface cables including PATA (Parallel ATA), SATA (Serial ATA), USB or SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) cables.

Difference Between Floppy Disk and Hard Disk

The difference between a floppy disk and a hard disk are as follows:

Floppy Disk Hard Disk
Floppy contains a single flat piece of plastic coated with iron oxide The hard disk contains one or more meta plats coated with iron oxide.
It is small and portable It is usually fixed and not portable
Less expensive than a hard disk Much expensive
It can  store a small amount of data It can also store a large amount of data
Its data access speed is slower than hard disk Its data access speed is faster
Data stored on a floppy disk is less safe than a hard disk Data stored  on the hard disk is safer
It can be damaged easily due to dust and heat It cannot be damaged easily due to dust and heat

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