CHAPTER 4Common Storage Devices

In this chapter, you will learn how to

• Describe floppy drives

• Explain how hard drives work

• Describe current optical disc technologies

Mass storage devices enable you to save programs and data for later use. All personal computers offer some sort of storage. The earliest PCs used floppy disk drives. Later PCs added hard drives. Just about every PC has some kind of optical drive, such as a DVD drive. This chapter explores all three technologies.

Floppy Drives

Floppy disk drives (FDDs) are mechanical devices used to read and write data from and to a magnetic disk called a floppy diskette. Figure 4-1 shows a standard 3.5″ drive. The 3.5″ drive has been available for personal computers since the mid-1980s. ...

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