Maxtor DiamondMax 17 160 ATA, Installation And Use Manual

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Glossary
Maxtor DiamondMax 17 80-160GB AT Hard Disk Drive G-3
FORMATTED CAPACITY – The amount of room left
to store data on the disk after the required space has been
used to write sector headers, boundary definitions, and
timing information generated by a format operation. All
Maxtor drive capacities are expressed in formatted capacity.
FORM FACTOR – The physical outer dimensions of a
device as defined by industry standard. For example, most
Maxtor disk drives use a 3 1/2-inch form factor.
G
GIGABYTE (GB) – One billion bytes (one thousand
megabytes).
GUIDE RAILS – Plastic strips attached to the sides of a
disk drive mounted in an IBM AT and compatible
computers so that the drive easily slides into place.
H
HALF HEIGHT – Term used to describe a drive that
occupies half the vertical space of the original full size
5 1/4-inch drive. 1.625 inches high.
HARD DISK – A type of storage medium that retains data
as magnetic patterns on a rigid disk, usually made of an iron
oxide or alloy over a magnesium or aluminum platter.
Because hard disks spin more rapidly than floppy disks, and
the head flies closer to the disk, hard disks can transfer data
faster and store more in the same volume.
HARD ERROR – A repeatable error in disk data that
persists when the disk is reread, usually caused by defects in
the media surface.
HEAD – The tiny electromagnetic coil and metal pole
piece used to create and read back the magnetic patterns
(write and read information) on the media.
HIGH-CAPACITY DRIVE – By industry conventions
typically a drive of 1 gigabytes or more.
HIGH-LEVEL FORMATTING – Formatting performed
by the operating system’s format program. Among other
things, the formatting program creates the root directory and
file allocation tables. See also low-level formatting.
HOME – Reference position track for re-calibration of the
actuator, usually the outer track (track 0).
HOST ADAPTER – A plug-in board that forms the
interface between a particular type of computer system bus
and the disk drive.
I
INITIALIZE – See low level formatting.
INITIATOR – A SCSI device that requests another SCSI
device to perform an operation. A common example of this
is a system requesting data from a drive. The system is the
initiator and the drive is the target.
INTERFACE – A hardware or software protocol,
contained in the electronics of the disk controller and disk
drive, that manages the exchange of data between the drive
and computer.
INTERLEAVE – The arrangement of sectors on a track. A
1:1 interleave arranges the sectors so that the next sector
arrives at the read/write heads just as the computer is ready
to access it. See also interleave factor.
INTERLEAVE FACTOR – The number of sectors that
pass beneath the read/write heads before the next numbered
sector arrives. When the interleave factor is 3:1, a sector is
read, two pass by, and then the next is read. It would take
three revolutions of the disk to access a full track of data.
Maxtor drives have an interleave of 1:1, so a full track of data
can be accessed within one revolution of the disk, thus
offering the highest data throughput possible.
INTERNAL DRIVE – A drive mounted inside one of a
computer’s drive bays (or a hard disk on a card, which is
installed in one of the computer’s slots).
K
KILOBYTE (Kb) – A unit of measure consisting of 1,024
(2
10
) bytes.
L
LANDING ZONE – A position inside the disk’s inner
cylinder in a non data area reserved as a place to rest the
heads during the time that power is off. Using this area
prevents the heads from touching the surface in data areas
upon power down, adding to the data integrity and
reliability of the disk drive.
LATENCY – The period of time during which the
read/write heads are waiting for the data to rotate into
position so that it can be accessed. Based on a disk rotation
speed of 3,662 rpm, the maximum latency time is 16.4
milliseconds, and the average latency time is 8.2
milliseconds.