Mirroring is the automated process of writing data to two drives simultaneously. Mirroring is used to provide redundancy, backup, multiple concurrent accesses and uninterrupted accessibility. If one drive fails, the redundant drive will continue to store the data and provide access to it. The failed drive can then be replaced and the drive set can be re-mirrored. Disk data mirroring is also done for disaster recovery. Entire data is mirrored at remote sites which can then be used for recovery in case of disasters or breakdowns. Data mirroring can be Read More

A DASD, or Direct Access Storage Disk, is a type of storage device that is connected directly to a user’s computer rather than being connected to the network. Because many types of storage device connect directly to a user’s computer, the term “DASD” may apply to a variety of different devices; however, a DASD is typically a storage device that contains a significant amount of memory and a relatively low access time. For example, desktop servers and external hard drives are good examples of DASDs, although flash drives and SD Read More

An Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE) cable is one of the most used standard electronic interface cables that connects a motherboard’s data bus with storage media. The interface’s design is based on the IMB Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) 16-bit bus standard that was approved in 1990, and it has since been expanded to be used on motherboards that use other bus standards. The IDE standard has since been updated with the Enhanced Integrated Drive Electronics (EIDE) connection design and is often built into a motherboard as well. The next generation of Read More

Small computer system interface or SCSI is a standard cable system that facilitates physical connection and transfer of data between a computer and its several peripherals. As you may know, a computer system is made up not just of the computer itself but also of other components. The computer is connected to a separate printer, scanner, fax machine and other equipments that are made and installed to complement the basic operations of the personal computer. The computer itself is made of many peripherals. The central processing unit is connected through Read More

Secure Digital (SD) memory cards are very simple to format. There are 3 main options to format the SD cards to the format needed. To successfully format an SD card, the write protection lock on the side of the card must be in the “unlock” position. SD mini and micro SD cards must be used with an adapter or specialized USB card reader when a computer is formatting them. The first option is to use a format utility. On most computer systems, there are generic formatting utilities available for nearly Read More

The MBR is the Master Boot Record. The MBR is a small program which runs whenever a computer boots up. The MBR is stored in the first sector of the boot disk. The boot disk may be a hard drive, a floppy drive, or even a CD or DVD drive. The Task of the MBR The normal job of the MBR program is to search the partition table for the active partition, copy the boot sector from the active partition into memory, and transfer control over to that program. If Read More

LBA is Logical Block Addressing. Early PC hard drives were supported by the PC BIOS using Cylinder/Head/Sector addressing. To read or write from a specific sector on the disk, you specified the sector in terms of its cylinder number, its head number, and its sector number. LBA adressing uses just one number. In LBA addressing, the first sector on the disk is sector zero and all sectors on the disk are simply incremented from there.

A sector is a small area on the surface of a hard drive or floppy disk. Hard drives usually have several platters. The platters are the discs that are covered with magnetic material, which is used to hold data. Floppy disk drives contain only one platter. Platters are divided into a set of concentric rings called tracks. A 1.44MB floppy disk has 160 tracks. Hard drives have thousands of tracks. Each of these tracks is divided into smaller storage areas called sectors. A sector is the smallest storage area on Read More

RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) is a data reliability and redundancy system that allows data to be stored on multiple computers at the same time. RAID technology is generally used in industrial, commercial, and government computer networks to store copies of system and user files on multiple hard drives that are connected through a logical unit and the network. RAID technology allows companies, agencies, and other institutions to ensure that important files are never lost or that system files that maintain an online server or physical computer network are Read More

eSATA stands for External Serial Advanced Technology Attachment. It is meant to be an external interface for SATA technologies. SATA or Serial ATA (Advanced Technology Attachment) is the next generation of drive interfaces, its predecessor being the Parallel ATA (PATA). PATA Anyone who has opened up their computer must have noticed the flat, 40-wire parallel cables that are used to connect the hard disk, CDROM and other devices to their respective controllers; these are typical PATA connections. PATA has been the standard in connectivity for a while and served the Read More