CD-ROM technology adheres to ISO 9660 which covers both the physical layout of the disk and the format of the recorded information. CD-R technology also adheres to ISO 9660. Standard error checking techniques should be used to assess the quality of the blank disks being used for storage. Magnetic tape A magnetically coated strip of plastic on which data can be encoded, magnetic tape provides relatively inexpensive and large storage capacities. Because tapes do not allow random access to data, access time is slower on tape than on disks.
Tapes are available in a range of sizes and formats.
However, hard disk storage is more expensive than other storage media.