Comparison between Magnetic

Tape and Magnetic Disk Storage

The following are the Advantages and Disadvantages Magnetic Tape
and Magnetic disk storage system:
1. Flexibility: Magnetic disk has to the flexibility of being used as
sequential as well as direct access storage device. On the other
hand, Magnetic tapes can be used only for sequential processing
of data.
2. Vulnerable to Damage: Magnetic Disk is less vulnerable to
damage from dust or careless handing than Magnetic tapes.
3. Access Time: Any information desired from disk storage can be
accessed in new milliseconds because it is a direct access storage
device. This is not possible in the case of tape storage which is
sequential access storage.
4. Rate of Data Transfer: Data transfer rate of Magnetic disk system
is normally high than tape system.
5. Cost: A disk pack having equal storage capacity that of the reel of
magnetic tape may be about 25 times more expensive.
6. Speed of storage: Sequential processing using disk may be slower
and less efficient than when tapes are used.
7. Security of Data: It is easier to maintain the security of
information stored on tape as compared information stored on a
disk.
8. Portability: Disk packs are not so easier portable like magnetic
tape.



I. Optical Disk
An optical disk has very high storing capacity. Only one
surface of an optical disk is used to store data. An optical
disk is relatively inexpensive, and has a long life of at
least 25 years. The greatest drawback of optical disk
system is its slow average seeks time of the drive. In
future it is expected that the access time will be reduced
using fiber-optic system.

OPTICAL DISK









I. Compact Disk
Compact disk (CD) is the least storage device, used
to store data, information and software, which can
be read only and not be changed or erased. It is an
optical read only memory, made up of resin.
Therefore, it is actually called as compact disk Read
Only Memory (CD-ROM). However, the information
is stored on CDs by using expensive drive, called CD-
ROM drive.
Now a day compact disk is very popular storage
device for microcomputer because a large number of
software including multimedia, audio and graphics
software is available only on this disk. Compact disk
can store a large volume of data (upto 680 MB),
which is almost the same as a storage capacity of a
640 MB hard disk.
II. Advantages of CD-ROM



I. Large capacity
II. Inexpensive
III. Very fast
IV. Suitable for archival storage
V. Better reliability
VI. Longer life
VII. Portability

Disadvantages
i. It is read only and can not be updated.
ii. It has an access time much longer than
that of magnetic disk drive.