3. Magnetic storage

This uses minute magnetic particles or 'domains' to store data.

A hard disk is an example of a magnetic storage device. It contains several platters on a spindle, spinning at high speed, with read/write heads floating just above the surface.

Another example of magnetic storage is a magnetic tape cartridge.

Advantages of magnetic storage	Disadvantages of magnetic storage
Huge capacity, offers up to several terabytes per device.	Not as portable as other technologies. But external hard disks are commonly available, but they need to be treated carefully.
Low cost per gigabyte - magnetic tape is the cheapest, but hard disk is very low as well.	Hard disk has mechanical moving parts, so less rugged than solid state storage.
Hard Disk offers high speed data access	Data can be lost near strong magnetic fields, such as being too near a Hi-Fi speaker.
Hard Disk offers random access to data	Magnetic tape uses serial data access and so is very slow.
Magnetic tape can hold its data for up to thirty years in the correct environment.	Data read \ write is not as fast as flash technology

Challenge see if you can find out one extra fact on this topic that we haven't already told you

Click on this link: Magnetic storage examples