Storage Devices

A storage device is a hardware device designed to store information. A storage device may hold information, process information, or both. A device that only holds information is a recording medium. Devices that process information (data storage equipment) may either access a separate portable (removable) recording medium or a permanent component to store or retrieve information. The two primary storage technologies are used:-

•Magnetic
•Optical.

Magnetic Storage device :- Magnetic storage uses different patterns of magnetization in a magnetizable material to store data and is a form of non-volatile memory. The information is accessed using one or more read/write heads. There are three types of magnetic storage device:-
•Floppy disks
•Hard disks
•Magnetic tape

Optical Storage device :- An optical disc is an electronic data storage medium that can be written to and read using a low-powered laser beam. The first optical disc, created by James T. Russell in late 1960. A laser read the dots, and the data was converted to an electrical signal, and finally to audio or visual output. Optical disc offers a number of advantages over magnetic storage media. An optical disc holds much more data. The greater control and focus possible with laser beams means that more data can be written into a smaller space. Storage capacity increases with each new generation of optical media. There are three types of optical storage device:-
•Compact Disk Read-Only Memory (CD-ROM)
•Digital Video Disk Read-Only Memory (DVD-ROM)
•CDRW