Recording medium - Definition and Overview

A recording medium is a physical material that holds information expressed in any of the existing recording formats.

Ancient examples:

• paper (painted or written with a pencil)
• clay and stone (carved or incised)
• wax tablets
• chalk
• quipu

Examples since the 19th century include:

• photographic film
• wax for recording cylinders
• "shellac" compound and later vinyl for analog disk records
• plastic sheet for Dictaphone recorders
• steel wire for magnetic wire recorders
• magnetic tape
• rigid magnetic disks and cylinders
• floppy magnetic disks
• pressed optical media for CDs and DVDs
• write-once, read-many optical media for writable CDs and DVDs
• read-write optical media for rewritable CDs and DVDs
• flash memory media