These computers are much more expensive and are primarily used for business applications. Supercomputers are used for very expensive and very large-scale operations such as NASA, the Internal Revenue Service, and scientific projects. These computers are extremely expensive, extremely fast and have the capacity to hold massive amounts of data. Data Storage Various medium are used to provide secondary storage. The most popular means of storage uses Magnetic Technology.
Hard drives provide a fairly fast access to and transfer of data and information.
In mainframe computers can often have many hard drives externally attached to them while PC hardware architecture usually has hard drives housed within CPU components. However, they enable the user to store data and information on portable diskettes. The term CD-ROM indicates that a CD is read only. Recent technology has come up with a CD device that can write as well as read data and information. Because data and information are actually burned into the surface with a laser beam, a CD must be new or resurfaced in order to be reused.