The first floppy disks were invented by IBM to store data and programs. Floppy disks came in 8 inch, 5 1/4 inch and 3 1/2 inch forms and were used for data storage from the mid-1970's to the late 1990's. The floppies held anywhere from 1.44 MB to 6MB worth of data. Now, a micro SD or flash drive or thumb drive can hold many gigabytes of data can fit. These can be used to take your email or other programs with you and run them on any compatible computer, along with your own data. A recent TV ad showed a 4 gig drive for $5.99