IGCSE ICT: Storage Devices and Media — Practice Questions

These are original questions written for Marlbridge, in the style and at the standard of the examination. They are not reproduced past-paper questions — Cambridge International holds copyright in its own papers. Use these alongside the official past papers available through your school or Cambridge directly.

Related: Storage Devices and Media revision notes

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Section A

1. Distinguish between a storage device and a storage medium. [2]

2. State one advantage of solid-state storage over magnetic storage. [1]

3. Order CD, DVD and Blu-ray discs by storage capacity, smallest first. [1]

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Section B

4. A company backs up its entire customer database once a month to long-term archival storage that is rarely accessed afterwards.

(a) Recommend a suitable storage technology for this backup. [1] (b) Justify your recommendation, referring to both a strength and an accepted weakness of the technology for this purpose. [3]

5. A field researcher records video on a rugged, portable device used in remote outdoor locations with no reliable power supply for weeks at a time.

(a) Recommend a suitable storage technology for the recording device itself. [1] (b) Explain why this technology is more suitable than a magnetic hard drive for this specific scenario. [3]

6. A software publisher wants to distribute copies of a program on physical media that customers cannot alter or overwrite after purchase.

(a) Recommend a suitable storage media type. [1] (b) Explain the specific property of this media type that makes it suitable. [2]

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Section C

7. A small design studio currently stores all of its work on a single portable magnetic hard drive. Evaluate whether switching entirely to solid-state storage would be a good decision for the studio, considering at least two relevant criteria. [6]

8. Explain why it is possible for two different storage options to both be described as “solid-state,” yet for one to correctly be called a storage device and the other a storage medium. [4]

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Worked answers

1. A storage device is the piece of hardware that reads and writes data (e.g. a disk drive); a storage medium is the physical material the data is actually recorded onto (e.g. a disc or memory card), which for some technologies is removable and separate from the device. [2]

2. Solid-state storage has no moving parts, giving it faster access speed and greater resistance to physical shock than magnetic storage. [1]

3. CD, DVD, Blu-ray. [1]

4. (a) Magnetic tape. [1] (b) Magnetic tape offers a very low cost per gigabyte at very large capacities, which suits a company needing to store a large monthly backup long-term; the accepted weakness is that tape uses sequential access, making it far slower to retrieve one specific file than a hard disk or SSD, but this is an acceptable trade-off since the backup is rarely accessed after being made. [3]

5. (a) Solid-state storage (e.g. a memory card or SSD). [1] (b) Solid-state storage has no moving parts, so it is far more resistant to damage from vibration, movement and physical shock than a magnetic hard drive, which relies on moving mechanical parts that are more easily damaged in rugged, remote field conditions; solid-state storage is also typically more compact and portable, which suits a device carried between remote sites. [3]

6. (a) An optical disc (e.g. a write-once or read-only CD/DVD). [1] (b) These optical formats can be produced as read-only or write-once media, meaning that once the data (the program) is written to the disc, it cannot subsequently be altered or overwritten by the customer — a guarantee that ordinary magnetic or solid-state media does not provide by default. [2]

7. A strong answer weighs at least two criteria against each other rather than declaring solid-state simply “better.” In favour of switching: solid-state storage offers faster access speed and much greater resistance to physical shock, which reduces the risk of losing design work to accidental drops or knocks, and would speed up day-to-day file access while working. Against switching entirely: solid-state storage has a higher cost per gigabyte than magnetic storage, so storing the studio’s full archive of past projects on solid-state alone could be significantly more expensive for large total capacity than continuing to use magnetic storage for less frequently accessed, older work. A balanced recommendation might keep solid-state storage for actively worked-on files (prioritising speed and durability) while retaining magnetic storage for long-term archived projects (prioritising low cost per gigabyte), rather than switching everything to one technology. [6] (Marks for genuinely weighing at least two named criteria against each other, and for a scenario-appropriate rather than absolute conclusion.)

8. Both an SSD (a storage device) and an SD memory card (storage media) use the same underlying solid-state technology — no moving parts, and data stored electronically rather than magnetically or optically. The distinction is not about the technology itself but about the role each one plays: an SSD is the hardware unit that reads and writes the data (making it a device), while an SD card is the removable physical material the data is actually recorded onto, separate from whatever device (such as a camera or card reader) reads it (making it a medium). The syllabus specifically expects candidates to identify which of these two roles a question is asking about, even when the underlying technology is identical. [4]

Official syllabus

Cambridge International, Cambridge IGCSE Information and Communication Technology (0417) syllabus for 2026, 2027 and 2028, Subject content, Topic 3 “Storage devices and media” — the same specification cited by the Storage Devices and Media study guide and its revision notes. Verified 2026-09-02.