FDD

Floppy Disks

Floppy disks are removable, direct access storage media inserted into disk drives. Floppy disks are flat, circular pieces of Mylar plastic that rotate within a jacket. These are also called flexible disks, floppies, Diskettes or simply disks.
Data and instructions are stored as forms of bits and bytes using the ASCII or EBCDIC data coding schemes. They are stored as electromagnetic charges on a disk surface. The two most common disks are 5 1/4-inch (5.25") and 3 1/2-inch (3.5") in their diameter. More efficient size, high storage capacity and sturdier design of a 3.5"-disk make microcomputers now use the 3.5" disks more.

Floppy Drives

A floppy drive grabs a disk at its center and spins it inside its plastic jacket. The floppy drive obtains stored data and instructions from a floppy disk and stores them onto the disk. The drive is made up of a box with a slot into which a user inserts a disk. The slot has a drive gate. This drive rotates the disk with a motor inside the drive. Electronic read/write heads "read" data from the disk and "write" data to it while the disk rotates.
A microcomputer usually has internal floppy drives inside the computer cabinet, but it sometimes has external floppy drive, a separate component outside the cabinet.

Working Process of Floppy Drive

• Inserting disk: Inserting a disk to let it work.
• Closing gate: After inserting, the drive gate should be closed. This places the disk around a spindle and holds it.
• Revolving: Spinning the disk inside the jacket. 
• Reading/ Writing: Read- write heads on an access arm transfer data signals from disk to computer or computer to disk.
• Seek: Seek operation is to let the access arm move the read-write head to the requested track on the disk.
• Search: Search operation is to let the drive rotate the disk to the proper position.