Both carry the same electrical signals, yet do so on different size coaxial cables and with different connectors. 75-ohm coaxial cables that get looped from one machine to the next. With thick ethernet, a 15-ohm cable connects the computer to a transceiver box which is securely fastened to a thick coaxial cable. The advantage of thin ethernet is lower cost and ease of cable hookup. The disadvantage is that if any one connection to a machine is broken, the entire network is down.
Tape Drives Magnetic tapes provide mass storage.
Along with floppy disks, they are used to back up programs and data, to exchange programs and data, and to receive updates of presently running software. Magnetic storage devices have also increased in size and speed. These are being replaced by 8-mm tape drives using inexpensive standard video tapes and capable of holding over 2 GB of data. There are also drives employing data compression to double the effective storage on a tape. By eliminating unneeded repetitions or space, compression is a good way to get something for nothing.