Magnetic Tape Magnetic Disk Optical Disk

Material and techniques Plastic Ribbon Thin circular plastic/metal disk/plate Plastic Disk
½ to ¼ inch wide and 50 to 2400 feet
long

Coating Iron oxide coating Iron oxide coating Thin metal coating
Chromium oxide Magnetized invisible dots record data Highly reflective material coating
Magnetized invisible dots record data
Access mode Sequential Access Direct Access Direct Access
Casing Cartridge or cassettes Cartridge or sealed container
Reading and Writing Tape drive Disk Drive Laser Beam Technology
Read write heads Read write heads
Access arms
Organization Vertical lines of frames Concentric circles=tracks One large spiral
Horizontal sections= tracks One circle divided into sectors Divided into equal sized sectors
IRG 8,9 and 10 sectors per track
IBG 200 tracks
File Header Label Sector 512bytes
File Trailer Label
BOT
EOT

Capacity High capacity

Large volumes of data

Number of surfaces*number of tracks Number of sectors* number of bytes

Data recording density*length of tape
Actions Tape controller
Read (one file/one block),write,
forward, rewind, remove, unload
per surface*number of sectors per per sector
track*number of bytes of sector
Disk Formatting (File allocation Optical disk drive
table)FAT, bad sectors Use laser beam to read write
Disk Controller (read, write)

advantages Light weight Direct access Long Data Storage life = 30 years
Portable Multiple user support Cost per bit is low= cheap
Easy to transfer data to and fro Online/offline storage More reliable as crashes less coz read
 Fast data transfer write heads are not involved
Portable Light weight

limitations Sequential access Sequential and direct access both Usually read only
Dust, temperature and humidity Dust Data reading speed is less
management Need labeling Need complicated drive
It gets twisted
Need proper labeling of data
Types DAT Floppy CD ROM
Streamer Tape Hard disk CD R
½ tape reel Zip disk WROM Disk
½ tape cartridge Disk pack CD RW
Winchester disk DVD

uses Offline storage Online For distribution of software, music,

For Sequential and huge volume of Direct storage data etc
data Taking Backup Maintenance of archives