Chapter 10. Removable Storage

The Role of Removable-Media Drives

Since the mid-1980s, the primary storage device used by computers has been the hard disk drive. However, for data backup, data transport between computers, and temporary storage, secondary removable storage devices such as flash memory devices/drives, optical drives, magnetic tape drives, removable media hard drives, floptical drives, magneto-optical drives, and even floppy drives have been useful supplements to primary storage. Pure optical storage, such as CD, DVD, and BD (Blu-ray Disc), is covered in Chapter 11, “Optical Storage.” This chapter covers the rest.

Traditionally, the most common varieties of removable storage have used magnetic media, but today flash memory devices ...

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