Magnetic storage
Encyclopedia
Magnetic storage and magnetic recording are terms from engineering
referring to the storage of data
on a magnet
ized medium. Magnetic storage uses different patterns of magnetization
in a magnetizable material to store data and is a form of non-volatile memory
. The information is accessed using one or more read/write heads
. As of 2011, magnetic storage media, primarily hard disk
s, are widely used to store computer data as well as audio
and video
signals. In the field of computing, the term magnetic storage is preferred and in the field of audio and video production, the term magnetic recording is more commonly used. The distinction is less technical and more a matter of preference. Other examples of magnetic storage media include floppy disk
s, magnetic recording tape, and magnetic stripes on credit cards.
in 1888. He filed a patent in September, 1878 but did not pursue the idea as his business was machine tools. The first publicly demonstrated (Paris Exposition of 1900) magnetic recorder was invented by Valdemar Poulsen
in 1898. Poulsen's device recorded a signal
on a wire wrapped around a drum. In 1928, Fritz Pfleumer
developed the first magnetic tape recorder
. Early magnetic storage devices were designed to record analog
audio signals. Computer and now most audio and video magnetic storage devices record digital
data.
In old computers, magnetic storage was also used for primary storage in a form of magnetic drum, or core memory, core rope memory
, thin film memory
, twistor memory
or bubble memory
. Unlike modern computers, magnetic tape was also often used for secondary storage.
is based on the fact that remnant magnetization of a given material depends on the magnitude of the applied field. The magnetic material is normally in the form of tape, with the tape in its blank form being initially demagnetized. When recording, the tape runs at a constant speed. The writing head magnetizes the tape with current proportional to the signal. A magnetization distribution is achieved along the magnetic tape. Finally, the distribution of the magnetization can be read out, reproducing the original signal. The magnetic tape is typically made by embedding magnetic particles in a plastic binder on polyester film tape. The commonly used magnetic particles are Iron oxide particles or Chromium oxide and metal particles with size of 0.5 micrometers. Analog recording was very popular in audio and video recording. In the past 20 years, however, tape recording has been gradually replaced by digital recording.
only needs two stable magnetic states, which are the +Ms and -Ms on the hysteresis loop
. Examples of digital recording are floppy disks and HDDs.
, which induces a rapid decrease of coercive field. Then, a small magnetic field can be used to switch the magnetization. The reading process is based on magneto-optical Kerr effect
. The magnetic medium are typically amorphous R-FeCo thin film (R being a rare earth element). Magneto-optical recording is not very popular. One famous example is Minidisc
developed by Sony
.
. The basic idea is to control domain wall motion in a magnetic medium that is free of microstructure. Bubble refers to a stable cylindrical domain. Data is then recorded by the presence/absence of a bubble domain. Domain propagation memory has high insensitivity to shock and vibration, so its application is usually in space and aeronautics.
or random or serial access memory although in some cases the distinction is not perfectly clear. The access time can be defined as the average time needed to gain access to stored records. In the case of magnetic wire, the read/write head only covers a very small part of the recording surface at any given time. Accessing different parts of the wire involves winding the wire forward or backward until the point of interest is found. The time to access this point depends on how far away it is from the starting point. The case of ferrite-core memory is the opposite. Every core location is immediately accessible at any given time.
Hard disks and modern linear serpentine tape drives do not precisely fit into either category. Both have many parallel tracks across the width of the media and the read/write heads take time to switch between tracks and to scan within tracks. Different spots on the storage media take different amounts of time to access. For a hard disk this time is typically less than 10 ms, but tapes might take as much as 100 s.
. Since much of audio and video production is moving to digital systems, the usage of hard disks is expected to increase at the expense of analog tape. Digital tape
and tape libraries
are popular for the high capacity data storage of archives and backups. Floppy disk
s see some marginal usage, particularly in dealing with older computer systems and software. Magnetic storage is also widely used in some specific applications, such as bank cheques (MICR) and credit/debit cards (mag stripes
).
in magnetic bits based on the tunnel magnetoresistance
(TMR) effect. Its advantage is non-volatility, low power usage, and good shock robustness. The 1st generation that was developed was produced by Everspin Technologies
, and utilized field induced writing. The 2nd generation is being developed through two approaches: Thermal Assisted Switching
(TAS) which is currently being developed by Crocus Technology
, and Spin Torque Transfer
(STT) on which Crocus
, Hynix
, IBM
, and several other companies are working. However, with storage density and capacity orders of magnitude smaller than an HDD
, MRAM is useful in applications where moderate amounts of storage with a need for very frequent updates are required, which flash memory
cannot support due to its limited write endurance.
Engineering
Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...
referring to the storage of data
Data
The term data refers to qualitative or quantitative attributes of a variable or set of variables. Data are typically the results of measurements and can be the basis of graphs, images, or observations of a set of variables. Data are often viewed as the lowest level of abstraction from which...
on a magnet
Magnet
A magnet is a material or object that produces a magnetic field. This magnetic field is invisible but is responsible for the most notable property of a magnet: a force that pulls on other ferromagnetic materials, such as iron, and attracts or repels other magnets.A permanent magnet is an object...
ized medium. Magnetic storage uses different patterns of magnetization
Magnetization
In classical electromagnetism, magnetization or magnetic polarization is the vector field that expresses the density of permanent or induced magnetic dipole moments in a magnetic material...
in a magnetizable material to store data and is a form of non-volatile memory
Non-volatile memory
Non-volatile memory, nonvolatile memory, NVM or non-volatile storage, in the most basic sense, is computer memory that can retain the stored information even when not powered. Examples of non-volatile memory include read-only memory, flash memory, ferroelectric RAM, most types of magnetic computer...
. The information is accessed using one or more read/write heads
Disk read-and-write head
Disk read/write heads are the small parts of a disk drive, that move above the disk platter and transform platter's magnetic field into electrical current or vice versa – transform electrical current into magnetic field...
. As of 2011, magnetic storage media, primarily hard disk
Hard disk
A hard disk drive is a non-volatile, random access digital magnetic data storage device. It features rotating rigid platters on a motor-driven spindle within a protective enclosure. Data is magnetically read from and written to the platter by read/write heads that float on a film of air above the...
s, are widely used to store computer data as well as audio
Sound
Sound is a mechanical wave that is an oscillation of pressure transmitted through a solid, liquid, or gas, composed of frequencies within the range of hearing and of a level sufficiently strong to be heard, or the sensation stimulated in organs of hearing by such vibrations.-Propagation of...
and video
Video
Video is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.- History :...
signals. In the field of computing, the term magnetic storage is preferred and in the field of audio and video production, the term magnetic recording is more commonly used. The distinction is less technical and more a matter of preference. Other examples of magnetic storage media include floppy disk
Floppy disk
A floppy disk is a disk storage medium composed of a disk of thin and flexible magnetic storage medium, sealed in a rectangular plastic carrier lined with fabric that removes dust particles...
s, magnetic recording tape, and magnetic stripes on credit cards.
History
Magnetic storage in the form of audio recording on a wire was publicized by Oberlin SmithOberlin Smith
Oberlin Smith was an American engineer who published one of the earliest works dealing with magnetic recording in 1888. In an article that appeared in the British magazine - Electrical World, he suggested the use of permanent magnetic impressions for the recording of sound...
in 1888. He filed a patent in September, 1878 but did not pursue the idea as his business was machine tools. The first publicly demonstrated (Paris Exposition of 1900) magnetic recorder was invented by Valdemar Poulsen
Valdemar Poulsen
Valdemar Poulsen was a Danish engineer who developed a magnetic wire recorder in 1899.-Biography:He was born on 23 November 1869 in Copenhagen...
in 1898. Poulsen's device recorded a signal
Signal (electrical engineering)
In the fields of communications, signal processing, and in electrical engineering more generally, a signal is any time-varying or spatial-varying quantity....
on a wire wrapped around a drum. In 1928, Fritz Pfleumer
Fritz Pfleumer
Fritz Pfleumer was a German-Austrian engineer who invented magnetic tape for recording sound.-Biography:...
developed the first magnetic tape recorder
Tape recorder
An audio tape recorder, tape deck, reel-to-reel tape deck, cassette deck or tape machine is an audio storage device that records and plays back sounds, including articulated voices, usually using magnetic tape, either wound on a reel or in a cassette, for storage...
. Early magnetic storage devices were designed to record analog
Analog signal
An analog or analogue signal is any continuous signal for which the time varying feature of the signal is a representation of some other time varying quantity, i.e., analogous to another time varying signal. It differs from a digital signal in terms of small fluctuations in the signal which are...
audio signals. Computer and now most audio and video magnetic storage devices record digital
Digital
A digital system is a data technology that uses discrete values. By contrast, non-digital systems use a continuous range of values to represent information...
data.
In old computers, magnetic storage was also used for primary storage in a form of magnetic drum, or core memory, core rope memory
Core rope memory
Core rope memory is a form of read-only memory for computers, first used by early NASA Mars probes and then in the Apollo Guidance Computer designed and programmed by the MIT Instrumentation Lab and built by Raytheon....
, thin film memory
Thin film memory
Thin-film memory is a high-speed variation of core memory developed by Sperry Rand in a government-funded research project.Instead of threading individual ferrite cores on wires, thin-film memory consisted of 4 micrometre thick dots of permalloy, an iron-nickel alloy, deposited on small glass...
, twistor memory
Twistor memory
Twistor is a form of computer memory, similar to core memory, formed by wrapping or closing magnetic tape around a current-carrying wire. Although the developers, Bell Labs, had high hopes for Twistor, it was used for only a brief time in the marketplace between about 1968 and the mid-1970s...
or bubble memory
Bubble memory
Bubble memory is a type of non-volatile computer memory that uses a thin film of a magnetic material to hold small magnetized areas, known as bubbles or domains, each storing one bit of data...
. Unlike modern computers, magnetic tape was also often used for secondary storage.
Analog recording
Analog recordingAnalog recording
Analog recording is a technique used for the recording of analog signals which among many possibilities include audio frequency, analog audio and analog video information for later playback.Analog recording methods store signals as a continual wave in or on the media...
is based on the fact that remnant magnetization of a given material depends on the magnitude of the applied field. The magnetic material is normally in the form of tape, with the tape in its blank form being initially demagnetized. When recording, the tape runs at a constant speed. The writing head magnetizes the tape with current proportional to the signal. A magnetization distribution is achieved along the magnetic tape. Finally, the distribution of the magnetization can be read out, reproducing the original signal. The magnetic tape is typically made by embedding magnetic particles in a plastic binder on polyester film tape. The commonly used magnetic particles are Iron oxide particles or Chromium oxide and metal particles with size of 0.5 micrometers. Analog recording was very popular in audio and video recording. In the past 20 years, however, tape recording has been gradually replaced by digital recording.
Digital recording
Instead of creating a magnetization distribution in analog recording, digital recordingDigital recording
In digital recording, digital audio and digital video is directly recorded to a storage device as a stream of discrete numbers, representing the changes in air pressure for audio and chroma and luminance values for video through time, thus making an abstract template for the original sound or...
only needs two stable magnetic states, which are the +Ms and -Ms on the hysteresis loop
Hysteresis
Hysteresis is the dependence of a system not just on its current environment but also on its past. This dependence arises because the system can be in more than one internal state. To predict its future evolution, either its internal state or its history must be known. If a given input alternately...
. Examples of digital recording are floppy disks and HDDs.
Magneto-optical recording
Magneto-optical recording writes/reads optically. When writing, the magnetic medium is heated locally by a laserLaser
A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of photons. The term "laser" originated as an acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation...
, which induces a rapid decrease of coercive field. Then, a small magnetic field can be used to switch the magnetization. The reading process is based on magneto-optical Kerr effect
Kerr effect
The Kerr effect, also called the quadratic electro-optic effect , is a change in the refractive index of a material in response to an applied electric field. The Kerr effect is distinct from the Pockels effect in that the induced index change is directly proportional to the square of the electric...
. The magnetic medium are typically amorphous R-FeCo thin film (R being a rare earth element). Magneto-optical recording is not very popular. One famous example is Minidisc
MiniDisc
The disc is permanently housed in a cartridge with a sliding door, similar to the casing of a 3.5" floppy disk. This shutter is opened automatically by a mechanism upon insertion. The audio discs can either be recordable or premastered. Recordable MiniDiscs use a magneto-optical system to record...
developed by Sony
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
.
Domain propagation memory
Domain propagation memory is also called bubble memoryBubble memory
Bubble memory is a type of non-volatile computer memory that uses a thin film of a magnetic material to hold small magnetized areas, known as bubbles or domains, each storing one bit of data...
. The basic idea is to control domain wall motion in a magnetic medium that is free of microstructure. Bubble refers to a stable cylindrical domain. Data is then recorded by the presence/absence of a bubble domain. Domain propagation memory has high insensitivity to shock and vibration, so its application is usually in space and aeronautics.
Access method
Magnetic storage media can be classified as either sequential access memorySequential access memory
In computing, sequential access memory is a class of data storage devices that read their data in sequence. This is in contrast to random access memory where data can be accessed in any order...
or random or serial access memory although in some cases the distinction is not perfectly clear. The access time can be defined as the average time needed to gain access to stored records. In the case of magnetic wire, the read/write head only covers a very small part of the recording surface at any given time. Accessing different parts of the wire involves winding the wire forward or backward until the point of interest is found. The time to access this point depends on how far away it is from the starting point. The case of ferrite-core memory is the opposite. Every core location is immediately accessible at any given time.
Hard disks and modern linear serpentine tape drives do not precisely fit into either category. Both have many parallel tracks across the width of the media and the read/write heads take time to switch between tracks and to scan within tracks. Different spots on the storage media take different amounts of time to access. For a hard disk this time is typically less than 10 ms, but tapes might take as much as 100 s.
Current usage
As of 2011, common uses of magnetic storage media are for computer data mass storage on hard disks and the recording of analog audio and video works on analog tapeMagnetic tape
Magnetic tape is a medium for magnetic recording, made of a thin magnetizable coating on a long, narrow strip of plastic. It was developed in Germany, based on magnetic wire recording. Devices that record and play back audio and video using magnetic tape are tape recorders and video tape recorders...
. Since much of audio and video production is moving to digital systems, the usage of hard disks is expected to increase at the expense of analog tape. Digital tape
Magnetic tape data storage
Magnetic tape data storage uses digital recording on to magnetic tape to store digital information. Modern magnetic tape is most commonly packaged in cartridges and cassettes. The device that performs actual writing or reading of data is a tape drive...
and tape libraries
Tape library
In computer storage, a tape library, sometimes called a tape silo, tape robot or tape jukebox, is a storage device which contains one or more tape drives, a number of slots to hold tape cartridges, a barcode reader to identify tape cartridges and an automated method for loading tapes...
are popular for the high capacity data storage of archives and backups. Floppy disk
Floppy disk
A floppy disk is a disk storage medium composed of a disk of thin and flexible magnetic storage medium, sealed in a rectangular plastic carrier lined with fabric that removes dust particles...
s see some marginal usage, particularly in dealing with older computer systems and software. Magnetic storage is also widely used in some specific applications, such as bank cheques (MICR) and credit/debit cards (mag stripes
Magnetic stripe card
A magnetic stripe card is a type of card capable of storing data by modifying the magnetism of tiny iron-based magnetic particles on a band of magnetic material on the card...
).
Future
A new type of magnetic storage, called Magnetoresistive Random Access Memory or MRAM, is being produced that stores dataData
The term data refers to qualitative or quantitative attributes of a variable or set of variables. Data are typically the results of measurements and can be the basis of graphs, images, or observations of a set of variables. Data are often viewed as the lowest level of abstraction from which...
in magnetic bits based on the tunnel magnetoresistance
Tunnel magnetoresistance
The Tunnel magnetoresistance is a magnetoresistive effect that occurs in magnetic tunnel junctions . This is a component consisting of two ferromagnets separated by a thin insulator. If the insulating layer is thin enough , electrons can tunnel from one ferromagnet into the other...
(TMR) effect. Its advantage is non-volatility, low power usage, and good shock robustness. The 1st generation that was developed was produced by Everspin Technologies
Freescale Semiconductor
Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. is a producer and designer of embedded hardware, with 17 billion semiconductor chips in use around the world. The company focuses on the automotive, consumer, industrial and networking markets with its product portfolio including microprocessors, microcontrollers,...
, and utilized field induced writing. The 2nd generation is being developed through two approaches: Thermal Assisted Switching
Thermal Assisted Switching
Thermal Assisted Switching, or TAS, is one of the new 2nd generation approaches to MRAM currently being developed. A few different designs have been proposed, but all rely on the idea of reducing the required switching fields by heating...
(TAS) which is currently being developed by Crocus Technology
Crocus Technology
Crocus Technology, founded in 2004, is a venture-capital-backed semiconductor startup company developing next generation magnetoresistive random access memory technology. The company's products originated in a Grenoble-based Spintec laboratory...
, and Spin Torque Transfer
Spin Torque Transfer
Spin-transfer torque is an effect in which the orientation of a magnetic layer in a tunnel magnetoresistance or spin valve can be modified using a spin-polarized current....
(STT) on which Crocus
Crocus Technology
Crocus Technology, founded in 2004, is a venture-capital-backed semiconductor startup company developing next generation magnetoresistive random access memory technology. The company's products originated in a Grenoble-based Spintec laboratory...
, Hynix
Hynix
Hynix Semiconductor Inc. chips and flash memory chips. Founded in 1983, Hynix is the world's second-largest memory chipmaker, the largest being Samsung Electronics. Formerly known as Hyundai Electronics, the company has manufacturing sites in Korea, the U.S., China and Taiwan...
, IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
, and several other companies are working. However, with storage density and capacity orders of magnitude smaller than an HDD
Hard disk
A hard disk drive is a non-volatile, random access digital magnetic data storage device. It features rotating rigid platters on a motor-driven spindle within a protective enclosure. Data is magnetically read from and written to the platter by read/write heads that float on a film of air above the...
, MRAM is useful in applications where moderate amounts of storage with a need for very frequent updates are required, which flash memory
Flash memory
Flash memory is a non-volatile computer storage chip that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. It was developed from EEPROM and must be erased in fairly large blocks before these can be rewritten with new data...
cannot support due to its limited write endurance.
See also
- Data storageData storage devicethumb|200px|right|A reel-to-reel tape recorder .The magnetic tape is a data storage medium. The recorder is data storage equipment using a portable medium to store the data....
, a broader perspective - MagnetismMagnetismMagnetism is a property of materials that respond at an atomic or subatomic level to an applied magnetic field. Ferromagnetism is the strongest and most familiar type of magnetism. It is responsible for the behavior of permanent magnets, which produce their own persistent magnetic fields, as well...
, the phenomenon - MagnetizationMagnetizationIn classical electromagnetism, magnetization or magnetic polarization is the vector field that expresses the density of permanent or induced magnetic dipole moments in a magnetic material...
, the property of an object that is affected by magnetism - Karlqvist gapKarlqvist gapIn 1953 Olle Karlqvist discovered a fundamental magnetic phenomenon when he was designing a magnetic storage and the ferromagnetic surface layer to the magnetic drum memory for the BESK computer...
, how to calculate permeabliity, airgap and other influencing factors - Magnetic tape sound recordingMagnetic tape sound recordingThe use of magnetic tape for sound recording originated around 1930. Magnetizable tape revolutionized both the radio broadcast and music recording industries. It did this by giving artists and producers the power to record and re-record audio with minimal loss in quality as well as edit and...
- Disk storageDisk storageDisk storage or disc storage is a general category of storage mechanisms, in which data are digitally recorded by various electronic, magnetic, optical, or mechanical methods on a surface layer deposited of one or more planar, round and rotating disks...
, which can store data magnetically and by other means - Marvin CamrasMarvin CamrasMarvin Camras was an electrical engineer and inventor who was widely influential in the field of magnetic recording.Camras built his first recording device, a wire recorder, in the 1930s for a cousin who was an aspiring singer...
, another innovator in the field - MRAM, one of the newest types of magnetic storage
External links
- A History of Magnetic Recording (BBC/H2G2)
- Selected History of Magnetic Recording
- Oberlin Smith and the Invention of Magnetic Sound Recording
- History of Magnetic Recording on the UC San Diego web site (CMRR).
- A Chronology of Magnetic Recording.