Floppy disk

From Govit

A reusable; portable storage device that generally holds 1.4 megabytes of data. Floppy disks; sometimes called flexible disks or diskettes; were the primary method of software and data distribution beginning in the 1970s. They were originally eight inches wide and enclosed in a flexible envelope; a 5.25-inch version was later introduced; and finally a 3.5-inch floppy disk encased in rigid plastic became the standard. CD-ROMs have become a popular alternative to floppy disks; especially for larger software and multimedia files; given their higher storage capacity. As network speeds have increased and Internet access has expanded; more software and data are now transmitted directly rather than stored.