| Name of Device |
Description |
Image |
| Floppy Disk |
A diskette is a random
access, removable data storage medium that can be used
with personal computers. The term usually refers to the
magnetic medium housed in a rigid plastic cartridge
measuring 3.5 inches square and about 2 millimeters thick.
Also called a "3.5-inch diskette," it can store
up to 1.44 megabytes (MB) of data. Although most personal
computers today come with a 3.5-inch diskette drive pre-installed,
some network
computer now
omit them. |
 |
| Hard Disk |
A hard disk is part of
a unit, often called a "disk drive," "hard
drive," or "hard disk
drive,"
that stores and provides relatively quick access to large
amounts of data on an electromagnetically charged surface
or set of surfaces. Today's computers typically come with
a hard disk that contains several billion bytes (gigabytes) of storage. |
 |
| CD-Rom |
A compact disc [sometimes
spelled disk] (CD) is a small, portable, round
medium made of molded polymer (close in size to the
floppy disk) for electronically recording, storing, and
playing back audio, video, text, and other information in
digital form. Tape cartridges and CDs
generally replaced the phonograph record for playing back
music. At home, CDs have tended to replace the tape
cartridge although the latter is still widely used in
cars and portable playback devices. |
 |
| DVD-Rom |
DVD (digital versatile
disc) is an optical disc technology that is expected to
rapidly replace the CD-ROM disc (as well as the audio
compact disc) over the next few years. The digital
versatile disc (DVD) holds 4.7 gigabyte of information on one of its two
sides, or enough for a 133-minute movie. With two layers
on each of its two sides, it will hold up to 17 gigabytes
of video, audio, or other information. (Compare this to
the current CD-ROM disc of the same physical size,
holding 600 megabyte. The DVD can hold more than 28
times as much information!) |
 |
| CD-RW |
CD-RW (for compact
disc, rewriteable) is a compact disc (CD) format that allows repeated
recording on a disc. The CD-RW format was introduced by
Hewlett-Packard, Mitsubishi, Philips, Ricoh, and Sony, in
a 1997 supplement to Philips and Sony's Orange Book. CD-RW is Orange Book III (CD-MO was I, while CD-R was II). Prior to the release of
the Orange Book, CDs had been read-only audio (CD-Digital
Audio, described fully in the Red Book), to be played in CD players,
and multimedia (CD-ROM), to be played in computers' CD-ROM
drives. After the Orange Book, any user with a CD
Recorder drive could create their own CDs from their
desktop computers. CD-RW drives can write both CD-R and
CD-RW discs and can read any type of CD. |
 |
| Zip Drive |
A Zip drive is a small,
portable disk drive used primarily for backing up and
archiving personal computer files. The trademarked Zip
drive was developed and is sold by Iomega Corporation.
Zip drives and disks come in two sizes. The 100 megabyte size actually holds 100,431,872
bytes of data or the equivalent of 70 floppy diskettes.
There is also a 250 megabyte drive and disk. The Iomega
Zip drive comes with a software utility that lets you
copy the entire contents of your hard drive to one or
more Zip disks. |
 |
| Tape drive |
In computers, tape is
an external
storage medium,
usually both readable and writable, consisting of a loop
of flexible celluloid-like material that can store data
in the form of electromagnetic charges that can be read
and also erased. A tape drive is the device that
positions, writes from, and reads to the tape. A tape
cartridge is a protectively-encased tape that is portable.
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