The 3 1/2" floppy disk (or micro floppy disk) is one of the two standard media of |data storage| used in floppy disk drives, the other is the 5 1/4" disk. It has a circular disc of ~ferric oxide~-coated ~Mylar~ recording media. This is sandwiched within a square protective envelope of rigid plastic. A metal shutter covers an aperture in the envelope, which slides open when the disk is in the drive, allowing the read/write head access to the recording media within. A spindle on the back allows the drive to spin the disk. As the |data sectors| spin by, the |read/write head| can recognize and alter the orientation of magnetic charges which represent |binary code|. A write-protection hole in one corner of the disk can be opened to prevent the drive from erasing or changing data. The disk media itself is extremely sensitive, and can be damaged by heat, electromagnetic fields, and even contamination by fingerprints. ~Double density~, 3 1/2" floppy disks can store 720 |kilobytes| of data. ~High density~ disks have the greater capacity of 1.44 |megabytes|. Newer technologies, like the 2.88 MB, 3 1/2" disk, continue to improve upon this limit.
