A magnetic storage device comprises a magnetic recording medium; a writing/reading element for storing information on the magnetic recording medium by generating a write field in order to switch regions within the magnetic recording medium in accordance with the information to be stored and reading stored information from the magnetic recording medium by sensing the switched regions within the recording medium and a layer-addressing means for addressing different layers of the magnetic recording medium by applying an oscillating magnetic layer address field in addition to the write field and by controlling the frequency of the oscillating magnetic field so that regions in different layers of the magnetic recording medium can be selectively switched and read.