In linux what is the difference between /media and /dev?

Question

they both have storage devices...
why two different ones and what normally goes under each?

Answer 1

The simplest way to describe the difference is to say that /dev allows you to access the *device*, whereas, when you mount a device in /media, it allows you to access *the data* on the device. If you were to "look" at an item in the /dev directory you'd basically be looking at the exact, raw binary information on that device, where if you mount the device and look at it in /media linux will take that raw data and interpret it and turn it into something useful, e.g. files and directories. So, if you need to write a disk image to a floppy disk, or if you want to delete every file on your hard drive by writing a 0 to ever bit of every sector, use /dev; if you need to add a file to a floppy disk, use /media.