Is Tape Drive a peripheral device? Explain its features

Is Tape Drive a peripheral device? Explain its features

Hello AlexanderRogers!

A tape drive is a storage device that uses stores, record and read data in a magnetic disk. From the word itself “tape drive” it is not a peripheral device. Let me just plot the difference of peripheral and necessary parts of our computer. You can store different files with tape drives using compressor/de-compressor software or hardware.

Basic parts of computer – Tower (CPU, storage devices, memory, processor), monitor, mouse, keyboard.

Peripherals – printer, speaker, headset, or anything that computer will work without these.

Though you mentioned tape drive will be just connected using a connector USB hardware it is still part of computer. Tower comprises storage devices. So it is considered part of a basic computer, therefore it is not a peripheral. I remember using this tape drive in my work before as System Analyst for P&G. They are using HP computer backbone and frames, tape drives to store daily orders. The problem with this is that you have to take note and you need to replenish the tape drive (database record) from time-to-time, so the system will not crash and you will not lose any data. It is secured but difficult to maintain.

The difference between hard disk drive and tape drive.

1. Hard disc – stores data non-sequential or sequential. In to a hard disk.

2. Tape drive – stores data sequentially using magnetic tapes. From 1951, it can store 224KB only, by 2014 it was raised to 10TB.

Theses drives can be connected using USB, SCSI, SATA, FireCon and Firewire.

Here are the samples of tape drive with connectors.

1. Quantum LTO-5 – uses USB connector.

2. HP StoreEver LTO-5 – uses SAS connection

Is Tape Drive a peripheral device? Explain its features

Tape drive is a data storage device that reads and stores data  on a magnetic tape. Like an ordinary tape recorder, a tape drive writes data on a loop of flexible celluloid-like material that can be read and also erased.You can stride online data onto it but the size of the data should not be more than the size of the drive. They provide sequential access and reads all the preceding blocks of data which makes it slow for general purpose storage. Random access storage device allows data to be read and written at the same time not regarding the direction of the data. Tape drives are more economical compared to disk drives.

Linear Tape-Open (LTO) is an open-format tape storage technology developed by Hewlett-Packard (HP), International Business Machines (IBM), and Certance. It