Which of the following is an older secondary storage device?

The floppy drive is recognized as an older secondary storage device primarily because it was widely used in the 1970s and remained common until the late 1990s and early 2000s. Its design features a flexible magnetic disk housed in a protective plastic enclosure, and it typically has limited storage capacity, usually ranging from 1.44 MB for the 3.5-inch floppy disk to even less for the larger 5.25-inch disks.

In contrast, while hard disk drives (HDD) and solid-state drives (SSD) have undergone significant advancements and changes, they were developed later and have persisted in use as primary and secondary storage devices. USB flash drives, although not as old as floppy drives, emerged in the late 1990s and quickly became popular due to their portability and capacity over floppy disks. This timeline highlights the floppies' status as the oldest among the options provided.