What is a disadvantage of Magnetic Tapes?

• A. They support random access quickly
• B. Tape is read/written sequentially, so slow when finding specific data
• C. They are non-volatile
• D. They are always on and consuming power

Answer: (B)

Magnetic tapes are a sequential-access storage medium, meaning data is read in order as the tape winds past the read/write head rather than being fetched directly from any arbitrary address. Because of that, finding a specific piece of data can require winding through the tape to reach its location, which makes access times slow compared with random-access storage like disks or SSDs. This limitation is the main drawback when you need quick, targeted retrieval from archival or backup data stored on tape. The other statements aren’t disadvantages: tape is non-volatile, so it retains data without power, and it doesn’t continuously consume power—the drive only uses energy when loading, repositioning, or reading/writing.