Cambridge IGCSE Computer Science · Syllabus 0478 · Hardware
Magnetic Storage
What is Magnetic Storage?
Magnetic storage is secondary storage in which data is held as the magnetic polarity of tiny areas on a spinning platter or a tape, read and written by a head that moves across the surface as it turns.
This definition is part of the Hardware chapter in Cambridge IGCSE Computer Science.
Magnetic Storage in context
Magnetic storage uses platters — rigid spinning discs coated with a magnetic material — which are divided into tracks and sectors. Data is read and written using electromagnets in a read/write head that moves across the spinning platter. A region of the surface is magnetised in one of two directions, and those two directions represent the 1s and 0s. The example named by the syllabus is the hard disk drive (HDD).