medium

The term medium is to be interpreted scientifically as a means or mediating substance for a carrier of physical processes. In the general sense, a medium is a mediating element.

1. Applied to data communication, a medium is the material used for physical data transmission, i.e. the transmission medium. This can be a copper wire or an optical fiber, or air, as in the case of wireless radio technology.
2. In storage technology, the word medium is interpreted as the material on which data can be stored. In this case, one speaks of storage media. Typical storage media are floppy disks, hard disks, MO discs, magnetic tapes, compact discs( CD) and DVDs.