Data Backup Glossary (Letter G)

Data Backup Glossary (Letter G)Ghost imaging
Using ghosting software, a method of converting the contents of a hard drive—including its configuration settings and applications—into an image, and then storing the image on a server or burning it onto a CD. When contents of the hard drive are needed again, ghosting software converts the image back to original form. Companies often use ghost imaging when they want to create identical configurations and install the same software on numerous machines.

Gigabyte
2 to the 30th power (1,073,741,824) bytes. One gigabyte is equal to 1,024 megabytes. Gigabyte is often abbreviated as G or GB.

Giant magnetoresistive
Giant magnetoresistive (GMR) is a hard disk drive storage technology. The technology is named for the giant magnetoresistive effect, first discovered in the late 1980s. While working with large magnetic fields and thin layers of magnetic materials, researchers noticed very large resistance changes when these materials were subjected to magnetic fields. Disk drives that are based on GMR head technology use these properties to help control a sensor that responds to very small rotations on the disk. The magnetic rotation yields a very large change in sensor resistance, which in turn provides a signal that can be picked up by the electric circuits in the drive.