SCSI (Small Computer System Interface) is a set of ANSI standards for connecting devices to computer systems. The vast majority of SCSI devices are data storage devices. Standard SCSI is a parallel technology, but many serial SCSI variants exist, including FireWire and Fibre Channel. SCSI is generally considered a higher-end alternative to IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics). A single IDE controller can control two drives. A single SCI controller can control 8 or 16 drives. In addition, SCSI usually offers greater cable length and higher length than IDE. SCSI Standards SCSI Read More

One of the most disastrous things that can happen when using a computer is that the hard drive fails. All of the files that you have are lost. You could hire someone to try and extract the files, but this can be expensive. The better way is to back up your files before the hard drive fails. There are many ways. You can do an online backup. You can put the files on CDs. Or, you can use an external hard drive. The external hard drive acts like a hard Read More

Serial ATA is an enhancement to the ATA standard for for connecting storage to PC’s. All versions of ATA up until ATA-7 in 2004 utilized parallel transfer of data from the motherboard to the drive controller built onto the disk. The ATA-7 specification introduced Serial ATA. Serial ATA Standards The original Serial ATA standard offered miniminal improvement over the existing 133MBps bandwidth of the existing Parallel ATA standard. Serial ATA standards are constantly evolving to meet higher bandwidth requirements. Serial ATA Type Bandwith Bus Speed Signal Rate SATA-150 150MBps 1500MHz Read More

RAID stands for Redundant Array of Independent Disks and it basically involves combining two or more drives together to improve the performance and the fault tolerance. Combining two or more drives together also offers improved reliability and larger data volume sizes.  RAID distributes the data across several disks but the operating system considers this array a single disk. RAID Levels RAID 0 RAID 0 uses data stripping as the data is broken into fragments while writing it to the drive. The fragments are then written to their disks simultaneously in Read More

iSCSI stands for Internet SCSI, or Internet Small Computer Systems Interface. iSCSI is the transmission of SCSI commands and data over IP networks, and represents a networking standard for IP-based network data storage. The development of the IETF standard was considered to be the key enabler for expanded usage of storage area networks (SANs) throughout the marketplace. iSCSI technology can be deployed on local or wide area networks through the use of the Internet across distributed resources. How iSCSI Works When an application attempts to read from an iSCSI device, the Read More

Online data storage, also known as Internet data storage, is a technology which allows people to store their data in the Internet. With broadband speeds becoming faster and bandwidth pricing dropping every year, more people are interested in purchasing online data storage. Online data storage not only provides an additional flexible source for storing data but also acts as a backup mechanism and provides an effective method of sharing data with others. This is the reason why Internet data storage is increasingly popular even as the costs of physical local Read More

Using a flash drive is a simple process that requires access to a computer and an understanding of how to drag a file from one folder to another. Once that is done, files are on a flash drive. So long as the computer is working and the files aren’t corrupted, they’ll transfer over in a few seconds per file. On top of that, depending on the size of the file will determine how many can fit on the flash drive. The first step in using a flash drive is to Read More

Striping is the automated process of writing data across multiple drives simulteneously. Striping is used to increase the performance of disk reads. When using striping, if you write a 5GB file across 5 drives, 1GB of data is written to each drive. Parallel reading of data from multiple disks can have a significant positive impact on performance, because the physical disk drive is most often the performance bottleneck. Striping is used in RAID Level 0. If one drive in a striped set fails, all of the data in the stripe Read More

An external hard drive is a portable storage device that is similar to an internal hard drive, but sits on the outside of a computer rather than the inside. It connects to a computer via a USB port on the external casing of the computer and may or may not require its own power source. External hard drives are often preferred over internal hard drives because they are more portable, able to store large amounts of data, and can connect to a computer via Plug-and-Play technology, allowing users to easily Read More

ATAPI, Advanced Technology Attachment with Packet Interface is the standard interface (type of connection) used to connect hard drives, CD-ROM drives and other components like RAM, motherboard inside the CPUs of personal computers. It is the standard developed by Western Digital and maintained by the International Committee for Information Technology Standards (also known as the X3). ATAPI is an evolved form of ATA interface. However, further advancements in interface technology have produced the Serial ATA interface (2003) which is a step up from ATAPI. The ATAPI was designed in 1986 Read More