What is the difference between floppy disc and hard drive?

Answer 1

A hard disk (HD for short) and floppy disk (FD for short) both work in the same manner, except that on can hold more information. Both are a type of magnetic media which can have information written and erased many many times. A lot better than paper when you write something and erase many times, that paper gets thin, then GAME OVER! I am including a link to better explain this from "howstuffworks". I really love that site. I could spend all day on there reading about anything! About their differences. the most common floppy disks only hold about 3.14MB of data. Where an electric HD can hold almost any amount up to several terabytes today!! That is huge. The FD uses a mechanical motor to move the read/write armature that hovers over the FD material (most comparable to cassette tape material). This is where it changes the magnetic properties of the tape material, and bingo, last night's report is saved! The HD works in a similar fashion. HD's have dense metallic disks inside that can spin at thousands of RPM's (rounds per minute). As the disks spin a similar Armature that is is surrounded by some really powerful magnets changes the magnetic properties of the dense metallic disks and Bingo, last night's report, music, and the whole operating system is spinning virtually forever. That is the basics. Hopefully that sums things up in a nutshell. Visit that site at howstuffworks to really see a more in depth look at floppy disks & hard drives!

Answer 2

The main difference between the above devices is size.

A floppy disk holds 1.44 MB ( Megabytes ) of data

A regular CD holds about 700 MB of data

Hard Drives ( what is inside your computers ) all vary. HD's bought now are in the GB ( Gigabytes ) where as 1 GB is 1,024 MB.

Pen Drives also vary, but they are very similar to HD's, to where their sizes vary, they have very fast transfer rates, and can hold quite a lot of data. Pen Drives ( aka, flash drives, USB Keys, or Mass Storage Devices ) can even store entire operating systems now.

Answer 3

Floppy disks are out dated, hold only a few MB of storage and break easily. Hard disks are large disks that stay inside your computer, that way your operating system is installed on and all your files are saved too.

Answer 4

These days (2012) you will not find many floppy disks (although just a couple of years ago we had to order special floppy drives for a server because some software would only be installed if it booted from Drive: A a floppy).

There were 8 inch and 5 inch and 31/2 inch floppy disks which were common.

The latest (diskettes) were the smallest and were protected by a hard plastic casing. Inside a thin Mylar disk coated with a magnetic surface stored the 1.44 Mb that was the capacity of most diskettes.

Hard disks have one or more aluminium or glass disks coated with magnetic surfaces. These hold much more information and now (2012) there are units that can store 3Tb or more.

Answer 5

a floppy disk is larger so it is harder to transport in person and a ped drive can store more stuff

Answer 6

A Floppy disk is a disk put inside of the computer to save information. A pen drive is a USB connection to a portable storage device.

Answer 7

Floppy disc is a removable media while the hard drive is fixed on the computer , that is the MAJOR difference, tows are magnetic if you are looking for similarities.