what is magnetic storage

what is magnetic storage

Magnetic Storage

It is most commonly used storage media because of its availability and price. The surfaces of these devices are coated with a magnetically sensitive material, like iron oxide, that reacts to a magnetic field.

Tracks and Sectors

When you format this magnetic disk, the disk creates a set of concentric rings, on each side of the disk. These concentric rings are called tracks. The type of disk governs the number of tracks required. A hard disk may have several hundred tracks on each side of each platter. Each track is a separate circle. The tracks are numbered from the outermost circle to the innermost, starting with 0.

Examples of Magnetic Storage. Floppy diskettes (almost obsolete now), hard disks and magnetic tape.

Diskettes contain a single thin disk, usually made of plastic. This disk is flexible and thus the name floppy disks. A diskette stores data on both sides of its disk which are numbered as side 0 and side 1. Each of these sides has its own read/write head.

Hard disks usually consists of multiple disks, called platters since they are made of a rigid material like aluminum. Subsequent sections will explain Hard Disk Storage in further details.

Magnetic recording is done using magnetic tape which are made of a thin magnetizable coating on a long, narrow strip of plastic film.

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