In this class we seek to understand the concept of logical storage for computer files stored on a physical medium.

Even though all data is stored as a sequence of zeros and ones not this binary data; we learned that this data can have some logical organization on the physical access medium.

Serial access is where data can only be accessed in the order that it was written. This is usually because of the inherent nature of the storage medium for example a magnetic tape.

Sequential access is a form of Serial access, when we organize our data in some order before storing the Data on the storage medium.

Direct access is where the location of the data on the storage medium is known beforehand, thus accessing a logical file on a direct access medium does not require accessing any other data but that specific file.

below is a video which demonstrates an analogy ff data storage for direct access serial access and sequential access:

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