Because people were already accustomed to calling storage devices drives (e.g. ROM/optical drive, Flash/thumb drive, hard disk drive, floppy drive, tape drive, etc). The word connotes necessary information despite the (possible) lack of a mechanical motor or “drive” (although electrons are still “driven” about the drive in some sense, though “pushed and pulled” might be more semantically correct).
English! Also note the word “literally” has come to mean “figuratively”. What an absurd and delightful language.
