Ch 5

44 flashcards · Other · by Samragyee Dhakal

  1. Defrag and Optimization tool (dfrgui.exe)

    A Windows utility that defragments a magnetic hard drive and trims an SSD to improve performance. Also called Defragment and Optimize Drives utility.

  2. Diskpart

    A Windows command to manage hard drives, partitions, and volumes.

  3. DVD (digital versatile disc or digital video disc)

    A technology for optical discs that uses a red laser beam and can hold up to 17 GB of data.

  4. fault tolerance

    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.

  5. file system

    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.

  6. formatting

    The process of creating a new file system for a given volume or logical drive (follows the process of partitioning with MBR or GPT). See 'file system'.

  7. hot-swapping

    The ability to plug in or unplug devices without first powering down the system. USB devices are hot-swappable.

  8. IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics)

    A hard drive whose disk controller is integrated into the drive, eliminating the need for a controller cable and thus increasing speed as well as reducing price.

  9. IOPS (input/output operations per second)

    A measurement of read or write operations performed in one second.

  10. latency

    Delays in network transmissions that result in slower network performance; measured by the round-trip time it takes for a data packet to travel from source to destination and back to the source.

  11. low-level formatting

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

  12. magnetic hard drive

    One of two technologies used by hard drives where data is stored as magnetic spots on disks that rotate at a high speed. Compare with solid-state drive (SSD).

  13. mirrored volume

    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.

  14. NAND flash memory

    The type of memory used in SSDs. NAND stands for "Not AND" and refers to the logic used when storing a 1 or 0 in the grid of rows and columns on the memory chip.

  15. NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express or NVM Express)

    An interface standard used to connect an SSD to the system and that uses the PCI Express ×4 interface to communicate with the processor. NVMe is about five times faster than SATA3.

  16. RAID (redundant array of inexpensive disks or redundant array of independent disks)

    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.

  17. RAID 0

    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.

  18. RAID 1

    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.

  19. RAID 5

    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 increase performance and provide fault tolerance. Windows calls these drives RAID-5 volumes.

  20. RAID 5 volume

    The term used by Windows for RAID 5. See RAID 5.

  21. RAID 10 or RAID 1+0

    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.

  22. read/write head

    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.

  23. SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment, or Serial ATA)

    An interface standard used mostly by hard drives, optical drives, and other storage devices. Current SATA standards include SATA3, SATA2, and eSATA.

  24. SATA Express

    An interface standard that uses a unique SATA connector and combines PCIe and SATA to improve on the performance of SATA3. SATA Express is three times faster than SATA3 but not as fast as NVMe.

  25. SCSI (Small Computer System Interface)

    An interface between a host adapter and the CPU that can daisy-chain as many as 7 or 15 devices on a single bus.

  26. SD (Secure Digital) card

    A group of standards and flash memory storage cards that come in a variety of physical sizes, capacities, and speeds.

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

    A BIOS/UEFI and hard drive feature that monitors 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 it is likely to fail.

  28. spanning

    A configuration of two hard drives that hold a single Windows volume to increase the size of the volume. Sometimes called JBOD (just a bunch of disks).

  29. SSD (solid-state drive or solid-state device)

    An electronic device with no moving parts. An SSD is a storage device that uses memory chips to store data instead of spinning disks (such as those used by magnetic hard drives and CD drives). Examples of solid-state devices are jump drives (also known as key drives or thumb drives), flash memory cards, and solid-state disks used as hard drives in notebook computers designed for the most rugged uses. Also called solid-state disk (SSD). Compare with magnetic hard drive (HDD).

  30. striped volume

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

  31. throughput

    A measurement of the amount of data that flows through a point in the data path over one second's time. Usually measured in MB/sec.

  32. UDF (Universal Disk Format)

    A file system for optical media used by all DVD discs and some CD-R and CD-RW discs.

  33. volume

    A primary partition that has been assigned a drive letter and can be formatted with a file system such as NTFS. Compare with 'logical drive'.

  34. CompactFlash (CF) card

    A flash memory device that allows for sizes up to 137 GB, although current sizes range up to 64 GB.

  35. disk cloning

    Making an exact image of a hard drive, including partition information, boot sectors, operating system installation, and application software, to replicate the hard drive on another system or recover from a hard drive crash. Also called disk cloning or disk imaging.

  36. XQD card

    A flash memory device used in high-end cameras. Successor to CF cards; succeeded by CFexpress cards.

  37. BD (Blu-ray disc)

    An optical disc technology that uses the UDF version 2.5 file system and a blue laser beam, which is shorter than any red beam used by DVD or CD discs. The shorter blue laser beam allows Blu-ray discs to store more data than a DVD.

  38. bootrec

    A Windows command used to repair the BCD and boot sectors.

  39. CD (compact disc)

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

  40. CDFS (Compact Disc File System)

    The 32-bit file system for CD discs and some CD-R and CD-RW discs. Also see Universal Disk Format (UDF).

  41. CFexpress card

    A flash memory device that allows for faster data transfer because they are designed using the PCIe 3.0 interface standard; CFexpress; comes in three form factors: A, B, and C.

  42. chkdsk

    A Windows command to verify that the hard drive does not have bad sectors that can corrupt the file system.

  43. wear leveling

    A technique used on a solid-state drive that ensures the logical block addressing does not always address the same physical blocks; this technique distributes write operations more evenly across the device.

  44. BCD (Boot Configuration Data)

    A small Windows database that is structured the same as a registry file and contains configuration information about how Windows is started. The file is stored in the \Boot directory of the hidden system partition.