I heard some people say theyre the same thing, but others are adamant that they have different meanings. Which is it?
Disc seems to be anything with a round and flat outer appearance, where disk seems to refer to any other storage media
I think they’re the same word, though.
A CD is a disk that is disc shaped.
Its a disk when its magnetic, disc when optical.
The way to remember it is that its disk because its magnetik.
Where do magento-optical fit?
disck
Disque
Including fridge magnets?
What if it’s optikal?
I cannot stress enough how efficiently you ruined my ability to use the memory trick.
Just remember the c in disc is shaped like a magnet.
Now you’ve gone and made things worse.
Is a VHS tape a disk then?
No, that’s a tape. It has to be dis(c/k) shaped to be a disk.
the tape spooled up on the reel inside a VHS looks like a thi(c/k) dis(c/k)
Linear disk 🤓
thic(k/c)
more disk shaped than flash memory.
No a disc is round
Is a plate optical or magnetic?
Depends on how you store data on it. If you write with a pen its optical.
I usually store food on them
Disk is for things that are more kiki, but disc, with that rounded off c, is for things that are more bouba.
IYKYK.
What about disq?
Round things with antennas
What about disckque
that’s the UK version of dick
At its root this was originally a British vs. American English thing. However, the spelling of “disc” with a C has been used specifically as the trade name of various brands including both the throwable and optical media varieties, which have since become genericized trademarks.
For the optical media side of things, the name was coined by Phillips while they were consorting with Sony to develop the standard and named it the “Compact Disc” to compliment their already existing “Compact Cassette” product. They developed an official logo for the format which spelled it “disc.” That’s been with us ever since.
As a generalized descriptor of a flat circular object, either “disk” or “disc” is appropriate but which is preferred seems to be largely depending on which continent you’re from. The root of the word is indeed the Greek “discus,” as in the object yeeted across the playing field by Olympic contestants.
For the optical media side of things, the name was coined by Phillips while they were consorting with Sony to develop the standard and named it the “Compact Disc” to compliment their already existing “Compact Cassette” product. They developed an official logo for the format which spelled it “disc.” That’s been with us ever since.
Didn’t LaserDisc predate Compact Discs?
It did. That may have influenced the naming convention. The LaserDisc was actually originally conceived as the “DiscoVision.” And if that name isn’t a veritable time capsule of its era, I don’t know what is.
I’ve always viewed it as the Disk contains the Disc. IOW, the floppy has the magnetic disc in it. The optical disc is the disc without the Disk.
Probably completely wrong etymologically, but semantically it’s fun.
Where does that leave my solid state disk?
This is from Hard Disk Drive (HDD), which is a Hard Drive with a Disk. Some people think the HD stands for Hard Disk, and use it incorrectly in SSD, which has no disks.
Oh you’re right is solid state drive not disk
A carryover of terminology?
We still say “film” even though most everything is recorded and played back via digital video.
Disk but with a soft k, like in kif
You know “disc” is actually a weird word.
Like say it a few times out loud
D I S C
Disque
Diskette
Petit Disk
I always thought discs were optical and disks were magnetic
Disck
They’re all the same word at their core, evolving from the older Latin word. The difference just comes in how the words were used to describe either a computer related device, hard disk, floppy disk, or a sound carrying device, disc record, compact disc.
Perhaps it’s just a leftover marketing motif?
"The spelling disk and disc are used interchangeably except where trademarks preclude one usage, e.g., the Compact Disc logo. The choice of a particular form is frequently historical, as in IBM’s usage of the disk form beginning in 1956 with the “IBM 350 disk storage unit”. "
Disc = round
Disk = rectangular
This is correct in most cases but I don’t think it’s the underlying principle.
This wiki talks about the etymology, with a lot of examples. Most conform to this rule, but there are exceptions in astrophysics like an accretion disk.
Even in info tech, “hard disk” doesn’t really conform to this rule. Like is a hard disk a square hard drive or is it the round thing inside? If it’s the square hard drive, that’s not thin enough to be a “disk”. I’d it’s the round thing inside that would be hard disc, but also creates problems for floppy disk because why refer to the housing in one instance but not another.
Sadly, I think the correct answer is that either refers to a thin flat thing, some spellings are preferred for some uses.
til disk is actually preferred in American English. from your link:
Usage notes
In most varieties of English, disk is the preferred spelling for magnetic media (hence floppy disk, hard disk, disk drive), whereas disc is preferred for optical media (hence compact disc, digital versatile disc, optical disc). For all other uses, disk is preferred in American English and acceptable in Canadian English, and disc otherwise.
Find me an American who says his car is equipped with “disk brakes.” “Disk” is peculiar to computer magnetic storage media, and “disc” for a round object that probably spins.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_(mathematics) preferred spelling here
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/disk main entry lists disc as a variant spelling while the entry for disc: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/disc notes it as a variant spelling of disk
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/disc links to disk
Cambridge online dictionary seems to agree with you more but it’s always been the shittiest of them
Wikipedia tells me that they were initially developed in England and finally patented in Germany, so I’m guessing that’s why the British spelling is used in that case.
I can clarify some of the tech stuff.
A “disk” is a concept. It’s an object which contains data.
“Hard” disks and “floppy” disks are always referring to the rigidity of the internal storage media. 7", 5.25", and 3.5" floppy disks have the same round magnetic storage material. The only difference with a 3.5" floppy disk is that they put a hard case over the floppy disk.
CD, DVD, Blu-ray, etc are both disks and discs, as their typically handled without a caddy/case. So technically both apply.
SSDs are still disks, just solid state, rather than floppy/hard spinning magnetic media.
Technically flash drives are also solid state disks, but we don’t generally conflate the two terms for clarity.
You’re conflating “disk” with “drive”.
An SSD is not a disk.
What about MiniDisc, the storage medium of the future?
sir, this is lemmy shitpost. Here’s a citation for thinkin too hard, don’t let it happen again.
What about hard disk drives. The “disks” inside them are round
The hard disk is made with discs.
Well…That almost makes it too simple.
So… what are mini discs?
Discks
It’s all disk? 🌎👨🚀
Always has been 🌎👨🚀🔫👨🚀