A Floppy disk is unrelated to disk storage.
A floppy disk , also called a floppy , diskette or just disk , is a type of disk storage composed of a disk of thin and flexible magnetic storage medium , sealed in a rectangular plastic enclosure lined with fabric that removes dust particles . Floppy disks , initially as 8 inch media and later in 5 1/4 - inch ( 133 mm ) and 3 1/2 - inch ( 90 mm ) sizes , were a ubiquitous form of data storage and exchange from the mid-1970s into the mid-2000s . 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floppy disk drives still have some limited uses , especially with legacy industrial computer equipment , they have been superseded by data storage methods with much greater capacity , such as USB flash drives , flash storage cards , portable external hard disk drives , optical discs , ROM cartridges and storage available through computer networks . A floppy disk is a disk storage medium composed of a disk of thin and flexible magnetic storage medium encased in a rectangular plastic carrier .