磁盘

• Pinyin: cí pán
• Hanzi breakdown: 磁 = 石 + 兹 (magnetic); 盘 = 舟 + 皿 (disk, plate)

Meaning

Disk; magnetic disk. A data storage device, including floppy disks and hard drives.

Originally referred to floppy disks, now more commonly means hard disk drives (硬磁盘) or refers to disk storage in general. The C: drive in Windows is still called 'C盘' from this terminology.

Examples

1. 电脑提示磁盘空间不足，我得清理一下没用的文件。 The computer says there's not enough disk space — I need to clean up some useless files.
2. 以前的软磁盘容量才一点几兆，现在硬盘动辄好几个T。 Old floppy disks only held about one megabyte, but now hard drives easily hold several terabytes.
3. 把重要文件都备份到移动磁盘里，免得电脑坏了数据全丢。 Back up all important files to an external drive so you don't lose everything if the computer breaks.

Usage Guide

Context: technology, computing, data storage

Tone: technical

Do Say

• 磁盘已满，请清理空间。(The disk is full; please clear some space.)
• 文件保存在哪个磁盘？(Which disk is the file saved on?)

Don't Say

• 我买了一个云磁盘 (Cloud storage isn't called 磁盘 — use 云盘 or 云存储 instead)

Origin & History

Compound of 磁 (magnetic) + 盘 (disk, plate). Describes the circular magnetic storage medium.

Cultural Context

Generation: All ages

Social background: Universal