- A magnetic storage device consists of a spinning disk, which can hold magnetic fields, and a spindle. The spindle has two functions: to read data from the disk, and to write data to the disk. To read data from the disk, the spindle records the presence or absence of magnetic fields on the sector of the disk it reads. The absence of a magnetic field marks a byte of "0," while the presence of a magnetic field marks a byte of "1." The spindle writes to the disk by removing or adding these fields.
- As of 2011, most people are familiar with the large magnetic hard drives inside computers, but they are not the only kind of magnetic storage devices. Floppy disks, the 3.5-inch squares of plastic, contain a disk on which magnetic fields store data, and the floppy drive in a computer contains the spindle that reads the data from a floppy disk. While rare, magnetic tape drives also exist. These drives write magnetic data to cassette tapes: the same technology that was common for music in the 1980s.
- Magnetic storage devices are not without drawbacks. The technology for managing magnetic fields in close proximity to one another limits the amount of data they can store. As magnetic drives grow larger, it can take longer for the drive to access pieces of data. This is because the drive can only move so quickly as it locates data within an ever-larger storage medium.
- Magnetic storage devices were once the only technology for storing computer data. This changed with the introduction of flash memory and solid-state drives. Flash memory stores the binary data of zeros and ones, but it does so with electrons that shuttle through the device's circuitry instead of magnetic poles on a disk. Because electrons store the data, the devices have no moving mechanical parts. This allows the drives to consume less power than traditional magnetic drives and to retrieve data faster.
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