Computer Parts and Tools ( Part 2)

Question 1

Read/Write head

Answer 1

A sealed, magnetic coil device that moves across the surface of a disk in a hard disk drive (HDD) either reading data from or writing data to the disk.

Question 2

Hybrid hard drive (H-HDD)

Answer 2

A hard drive that uses both magnetic and solid-state drive (SSD) technologies. The bulk of storage uses the magnetic component, and a storage buffer on the drive is made of an SSD component. Windows ReadyDrive supports hybrid hard drives.

Question 3

Low-Level Formatting

Answer 3

A process ( usually performed at the factory) that electronically creates the hard drive tracks and sectors, and tests for bad sports on the disk surface. Compare with High-level formatting.

Question 4

S.M.A.R.T ( Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology)

Answer 4

A system BIOS and hard drive feature that moniters hard drive performance, disk spin up time , temperature, distance between the head and the disk, and other mechanical activities of the drive in order to predict when the drive is likely to fail.

Question 5

Hot-Swapping

Answer 5

Allows you to connect and disconnect a device while the system is running.

Question 6

External SATA (eSATA)

Answer 6

A standard for external drives based on SATA that uses a special external shielded SATA cable up to 2 meters long.

Question 7

Auto-detection

Answer 7

A feature of UEFI/BIOS that detects a new drive and automatically selects the correct drive capacity and configuration, including the best possible standard supported by both the hard drive and the motherboard.

Question 8

RAID ( redundant array of inexpensive disks or redundant)

Answer 8

Several methods of configuring multiple hard drives to store data to increase logical volume size and improve performance, or to ensure that if one hard drive fails, the data is still available from another hard drive.

Question 9

Fault Tolerance

Answer 9

The degree to which a system can tolerate failures, Adding redundant components, such as disk mirroring or disk duplexing, is a way to build in fault tolerance.

Question 10

Spanning

Answer 10

A configuration of two hard drives which holds a single

windows volume to increase size of a volume. Sometimes called JBOD ( just a bunch of disks).

Question 11

RAID 0

Answer 11

Using space from two or more physical disks to increase the disk space available for a single volume. Performance improves because data is written evenly across all disks. Windows calls RAID 0 a striped volume. Also called striping or striped volume.

Question 12

Striped volume

Answer 12

The term used by windows for RAID 0. A type of dynamic volume used for two or more hard drives that writes to the disks evenly rather than filling up allotted space on one and then moving on the next. Compare with spanned volume. Also see RAID 0.

Question 13

RAID 1

Answer 13

A type of drive imaging that duplicates data on one drive to another drive and is used for fault tolerance, Windows calls RAID 1 a mirrored volume. Also called mirrored volume.

Question 14

Mirrored Volume

Answer 14

The term used by Windows for the RAID 1 level that duplicates data on one drive to another drive and is used for fault tolerance, Also see RAID 1.

Question 15

RAID 5

Answer 15

A technique that stripes data across three or more drives and uses parity checking, so that if one drive fails, the other drives can re-create the data stored on the failed drive. RAID 5 drives increases performance and provides fault tolerance, Windows calls these drives RAID-5 volume

Question 16

RAID 10

Answer 16

A combination of RAID 1 and RAID 0 that requires at least four disks to work as an array of drives and provides the best redundancy and performance.

Question 17

RAID 1+0

Answer 17

See RAID 10

Question 18

Storage card

Answer 18

An adapter card used to manage hardware RAID rather than using the firmware on the motherboard.

Question 19

External enclosures

Answer 19

A housing designed to store hard drives external from the computer.

Question 20

Sequential access

Answer 20

A method of data access used by tape drives, whereby data is written or read sequentially from the beginning to the end of the tape or until the desired data is found.

Question 21

Data cartridges

Answer 21

A full-sized cartridge that holds data and is used in a tape drive.

Question 22

Minicartridges

Answer 22

A tape drive cartridge that is small enough to allow two drives to fit into a standard 5 inch drive bay of a PC case.

Question 23

File System

Answer 23

The overall structure that an OS uses to name, store, and organize files on a disk. Examples of file systems are NTFS and FAT32. Windows is always installed on a volume that uses the NTFS file system.

Question 24

Formatting

Answer 24

See format.

Question 25

CD (compact disc)

Answer 25

An optical disc technology that uses a red laser beam and can hold up to 700 MB of data.