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Glossary 73
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English
Glossary
Byte – A unit of storage on a drive that holds a single character.
A byte is equal to 8 bits.
Capacity – The amount of information, measured in bytes, that
can be stored on a drive. Also known as storage capacity .
Daisy chain – A hardware configuration in which peripheral
devices are connected to each other in a series. The FireWire
interface, for example, supports a daisy chain of up to 62 drives.
Data Transfer Rate – The speed at which data transfers to
and from the drive.
Defrag – (or defragment) A software utility that keeps the data
for each file physically contiguous on the drive, which can
enhance your drive’s performance.
Device Driver – A software program that enables a PC to
communicate with peripheral devices such as hard drives and
CD-ROM drives. Each type of device requires a different driver.
Device driver programs are stored on a computer’s hard drive and
are loaded into memory when the computer is started or when a
device is plugged into the computer.
External Hard Drive – A external peripheral device containing
a hard drive mechanism connected to a computer via a FireWire
or USB interface.
FAT32 – A file system that organizes files on the computer. This
file system is standard for Windows 98SE and Me, and is
supported under Windows 2000 and XP. A single file is limited in
size to 4 GB.
FDISK – A software utility included with the Windows 98 and
Me operating systems used to partition a hard drive.
FireWire – The FireWire interface, also known as 1394 and
i.LINK, is a high-performance, serial bus defined by the Institute
of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) as a standard for
connecting digital devices together. It is ideal for connecting
computers and hard drives to digital video and audio equipment.
Format – Formatting erases all information on a hard drive and
sets up the file system for storing and retrieving files. On
Macintosh systems, high-level formatting is often referred to as
initialization. Low-level formatting sets up the locations of sectors
on the drive. Your drive was formatted with the FAT32 file system
at the factory.
GB – (Gigabyte) Equal to 1,000,000,000 (billion) bytes. For a
detailed explanation, refer to page 29.
Hard Drive – An electromechanical device used for
information storage and retrieval, incorporating one or more
rotating disks on which data is recorded, stored, and read
magnetically.