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.