Which of the following are magnetic storage devices? (Choose three)

Magnetic storage devices utilize magnetic fields to store data on a medium that can be rewritten and accessed. Floppy disks, tape drives, and hard disks all fall under this category because they store data using magnetic materials.

Floppy disks, for instance, consist of a thin magnetic film on a flexible disk. When data is written to the floppy disk, it changes the magnetization of the disk surface in specific patterns that represent the stored data. Similarly, tape drives use magnetic tape as a medium to record and retrieve data, making them an excellent choice for backups and archival storage, leveraging the same magnetic principles.

Hard disks also operate on magnetic principles, using a spinning disk coated with a magnetic material where read/write heads move to record and read data. The magnetic surface allows for large amounts of data to be stored reliably and accessed quickly.

On the other hand, solid-state drives do not involve magnetic storage at all. Instead, they use NAND flash memory, which is a type of non-volatile memory that stores data electronically, allowing for faster access speeds compared to magnetic drives. Since solid-state drives rely on a completely different technology, they cannot be categorized as magnetic storage devices.

Therefore, the correct choices highlight devices that utilize magnetic materials for data storage,