When the user loads data into the computer, the information is stored temporarily on their own.

So we use storage devices

to store data permanently even when the computer is switched off.
So we can say that storage devices store digital data and software permanently while being separate from the computer
itself. Therefore, non-volatile.
Storage devices fall into three different categories
Magnetic
Optical
Solid State
Each one of those work in a different way to store data.
Let’s first focus on magnetic storage
some examples of magnetic storage medium are …..
Magnetic material is coated on top of the disk or tape that can be magnetized in such a way that can store data in tiny dots.
e.g. Hard disk drives are made of more than one disks. The dots that store data are arranged in a circle of each disk.
In the case of magnetic tapes the dots are arranged along a stripe of plastic coated in a magnetic material that is used to
store data.
The data is stored in the form of binary zeros and ones.
fixed hard disk drives – available on all computer, and are the main method used to store data. It’s fixed on a pc with
read/write head allowing data to be written to or read from the disk surface. They use direct access method to access the
data.
Hard disk drives are usually used to stored operating system, other system software as well as other application software.
The next example is the Portable hard disk drives – they work the same way as fixed hard disk drives the only difference
is that they usually have to be connected to the computer using a USB port making it easier to use from one computer to
another.
Portable hard disk drives can be used as a backup system to store lots of data as well as transferring information between
computers.
Advantages of hdd are fast data access because you can access the data randomly in any order without having to start at
the beginning and search through everything since hdd uses direct data access method
They can also store large amount of data mostly around 1-2 TB.
Portable hard disk drives can be used to share large files easily.
Disadvantages are the read/write operation can be noisy. they can easily be damaged from drops because they have
moving parts.
The data can corrupt when the device is placed a strong magnetic field.
Magnetic tapes – is a very thin piece of plastic that has been coated in a magnetic layer like we’ve said before. Magnetic
tape use serial access to access their data.