Magnetic Tape Drive

What is Magnetic Tape Storage?

Magnetic tape storage uses a flexible tape to store information magnetically, like a hard disk drive or a Zip drive do. In fact, modern Zip disks use technology similar to that used in some modern magnetic tapes (DLT tape IV, DDS-3, 4 tapes): ATOMM, or Advanced super Thin layer and high-Output Metal Media.

The main difference between the tape storage and other popular types of storage devices is its lack of direct access to data: to read and write data, a tape drive moves along the tape in a linear way, passing by all the data physically stored before the data requested. There is a difference with direct-access storage devices (DASD), which skips unnecessary data and goes directly to the requested ...

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