The document discusses different magnetic storage devices, including fixed hard disks, portable hard disks, floppy disks, and magnetic tapes. Fixed hard disks are used to store operating systems and software and have capacities of around 250GB, while portable hard disks have similar capacities but are smaller and lighter to allow data transfer. Floppy disks have very low storage of 1.44MB and are rarely used today. Magnetic tapes provide extremely large storage of 185TB for data backups but are slow with dated technology.

1. Magnetic Storage Devices
LEON ZAMMIT AND LUKE CARUANA

2. Fixed Hard Disk
• Used to store the
operating system and
applications software.
• Typical storage spaces
are 250 gigabytes.

3. Advantages and disadvantages
 Advantages:
 Very easy to update and delete files.
 Huge capacities.
 Fast read/write times.
 Disadvantages:
 Not portable as they are designed to be fixed.
 Can be damaged easily.

4. Portable hard disk
• Used to transfer data , files and
software.
• Typical storage spaces up to 250
gigabytes.

5. Advantages and disadvantages
 Advantages:
 Fast read/write times.
 Huge capacities
 Small and light.
 Disadvantages:
 More expensive.
 Small size makes them easy to misplace or have stolen.
 If the device is dropped it can still become damaged.

6. Floppy disk
• Can still be used
where very small
files need to be
transferred/stored.
• Storage: 1.44MB

7. Advantages and disadvantages
 Advantages:
 Cost very little to buy.
 Can be write protected easily.
 Very small , light and easy to carry.
 Disadvantages
 Very low storage capacity
 Very few modern computers have floppy disc drives
 Slow data transfer rate.

8. Magnetic
• Used when extremely
large amounts of data
need to be backed up.
• Storage: 185TB

9. Advantages and disadvantages
 Advantages:
 Less expensive
 Very robust
 Very large storage capacities
 Disadvantages:
 Very slow
 Needs another tape to update data.