The main difference between a floppy disk and a hard disk is that the floppy disk is an outdated technology that has only a few kilobytes of storing capacity but they were portable whereas the hard disk is the main memory of the computer which makes it non-portable and also the hard disk has more storage capacity and they can go up to few terabytes of memory. The hard disk drive is faster to access as compared to the floppy disk and also they are less susceptible to damage than the floppy disk
Difference between a floppy disk and hard disk
| FLOPPY DISK | HARD DISK |
|---|---|
| The floppy disk is a magnetic disk that is molded to a thin circular plastic disk | The hard disk is a magnetic disk also called a platter and are made from aluminum |
| Floppy disk was secondary storage devices they were used many years ago and are now non-existent | The hard disk is the primary storage devices of computer and existent till date although Solid-state drive are giving competition to Hard disk drive they are costlier than Hard disk drive |
| The surface on which the data is stored are exposed | The surface on which the data is stored are coated with magnetic oxide |
| The floppy disk has a very low storage capacity it can only store few kilobytes of memory | The hard disk drive has a high storage capacity and it can store up to terabytes of memory |
| The floppy disk is more susceptible to damage | The hard disk is less susceptible to damage |
| The floppy disk is cheaper | The hard disk is costlier than the floppy disk |
| The data access from the floppy disk by the CPU was slow | The data access from the hard disk by the CPU is fast as they are the main memory devices |
| The floppy disk is the size of a CD cassette and is easily portable | The hard disk is the size of a walkman and is fixed into computers therefore are non-portable |
| The floppy disk faced a high-security threat from computer virus | The hard disk has less security threat as computer now can easily perform a virus scan on main memory |
| The data can be damaged easily as it interacted more frequently with dust and heat | The data can not be damaged easily as they are tightly sealed inside the computer case |
| The floppy disk is housed inside a plastic jacket | The hard disk is housed inside the platter |
| The data recorded on the floppy disk are done through the magnetic dots on the spots of the track | The data recorded as magnetic spots on tracks that are present in a concentric circle on the disk surface |
| The floppy disk was mainly used as a secondary device like keeping a copy of the data in form of some backups | The hard disk is primary memory and hence they are used by the operating system to function properly storing various variable of the programs by the operating system |
| The floppy disk is also known as a removal type of storage this means it can be moved to any location easily | The hard disk is also known as a fixed type of storage this means it cannot be moved |
| Both the side of the disk can be used to store the data | The uppermost side and lowermost side of the disk cannot be used to store the data |
| The fourth generation of the computer has completely eliminated the floppy disk reader that were present in the previous generation of computer | The fourth generation of the computer has completely eliminated the floppy disk reader that were present in the previous generation of computer. The fourth generation of the computer has the hard disk drive slots on the computer as the main memory |
Aayush Kumar Gupta is the founder and creator of ExploringBits, a website dedicated to providing useful content for people passionate about Engineering and Technology. Aayush has completed his Bachelor of Technology (Computer Science & Engineering) from 2018-2022. From July 2022, Aayush has been working as a full-time Devops Engineer.