You need to spend more time with hardcore tech nerds 😝

You’re right, mostly people don’t call them that, but they do qualify and all the low level systems call them disks

But they're still referred to as "drives" when arguably they aren't that anymore, either. It's really tough to ditch a moniker sometimes.

It's from diskette which is a portmanteau of disk and cassette which is from the early days or portable storage where cassettes were used to house disks to keep them safe from damage. For example floppy disk.

Because they form a similar job, portable storage, modern day usb pen drives and ssds are often referred to as disks.