#Storage drives

Buckle up and hold on tight as we travel back in time to revisit the storage devices that were once the talk of the town. From floppy disks to compact discs, the OGs of data storage may seem like outdated relics now, but they were once the coolest kids on the block! So, grab your Walkman and let’s rewind some of the most commonly known storage drives of the past. Developed by Shugart Associates in 1976, this disk storage medium was composed of a thin and flexible magnetic storage medium, wrapped in a plastic casing, that held a significant amount of data ranging from 110 KB to 1.2 MB. [caption id="attachment_340675" align="alignnone" width="932"] Photo/ obsoletemedia.org[/caption] While the capacity was impressive for its time, the disks were relatively bulky and fragile, requiring careful handling and storage. 8-inch Floppy Disk The 8-inch floppy disk was a storage device introduced in 1971 and was one of the first floppy disk formats used in early microcomputers and minicomputers. [caption id="attachment_340676" align="alignnone" width="720"] Photo/ CERN Document Server[/caption] It was a read-only storage medium that stored data in a magnetic oxide coating on a flexible disk. The 8-inch floppy disk had a storage capacity of about 80 kilobytes and was eventually replaced by smaller, higher-capacity floppy disks. Read more in our articles including "Storage Drives of the Past: Do you still remember them?" and "Photo Storage Alternatives to Google Photos".