Step 1: What are Magnetic Storage Devices?
Magnetic storage uses the two types of magnetic polarities to represent binary information. Commonly used magnetic storage devices include magnetic tape drives and hard-disk drives

Step 2: A Look at Magnetic Tape Drives
Magnetic tape drives have been around since the 1950s. Although chances are you have never seen a magnetic tape in use, they are still useful today mainly for archiving data.
– Watch this video to learn more about magnetic tape drives.
– Try out Activity 3 and list reasons why magnetic tape drives are still useful today (Refer to ‘Memory & Storage Activity Sheet 2.pdf’ in the resource section)
– Now check your answers to Activity 3 using the Answer sheet attached.

Step 3: Hard Disks Drives
For decades now, most laptops and desktops come equipped with a hard disk drives as their main storage device.
– Watch this video to learn more about how hard drives work

Step 4: Direct vs Sequential Access
Serial Access means files are read by starting at the beginning and reading through record by record until the wanted record is found.  Direct (Random) Access allows each element in a file to be accessed without going through intervening elements.
– Try out Activity 4 to identify devices that allow direct access.  (Refer to ‘Memory & Storage Activity Sheet 2.pdf’ in the resource section)
– Now check your answers to Activity 4 using the Answer sheet attached.

Step 5: What Have I learnt so far?
Try out this online exercise to check your knowledge of magnetic tape drives and hard disk drives.

Step 6: Hard Disk Drive or Solid-State Drive?
– Check how much storage space you have on your Hard Disk Drive of your laptop or desktop computer. Note: If you’re stuck, remember a Google search can help you find out how to check the amount of RAM on your particular device.

You may find that rather than a Hard Disk Drive (HDD), your system has a Solid-State Drive (SDD); or you may have both! Solid-State Drives (SDDs) are not magnetic devices and work very differently from a hard disk.
– Learn more about Solid State Drives here.
– Try out Activity 5 and give reasons why one may prefer to have an SDD than an HDD on a laptop computer. (Refer to ‘Memory & Storage Activity Sheet 2.pdf’ in the resource section)
– Now check your answers to Activity 3 using the Answer sheet attached.

Well done! Now you are ready for the fourth lesson in this topic: Memory & Storage Devices – Lesson 4: Optical Storage Devices