Glossary of Hard Disk Drive Terminology (Letter F)

FAT (File Allocation Table)
A data table stored at the beginning of each partition on the disk that is used by the operating system to determine which sectors are allocated to each file and in what order.

Fdisk
A software utility used to partition a hard drive. This utility is included with DOS and Windows 95 operating systems.

Fetch
The process of retrieving data.

Fibre Channel (FC)
The general name given to an integrated set of standards being developed by an ANSI-approved X3 group. This set of standards defines new protocols for flexible information transfer. Fibre channel supports three topologies: point-to-point, arbitrated loop, and fabric.

Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop (FC-AL)
A subset of fibre channel network systems interconnection. A serial storage interface designed to meet the needs of high-end applications.

Fiscal Periods
Three-month segments of a fiscal year. Western Digital, with a June 30 fiscal year, has fiscal quarters ending on the last days of September, December, March and June.

Firmware
Permanent instructions and data programmed directly into the circuitry of read-onlymemory for controlling the operation of the computer.

FIT (Functional Integrity Testing)
A suite of tests Western Digital performs on all its drive products to ensure compatibility with different hosts, operating systems, adapters, application programs, and peripherals. This testing must be performed before the product can be released to manufacturing.

Flow Control
In PIO transfers, the ability of an EIDE drive to control the speed at which the host transfers data to or from the drive by using the IORDY signal. The host temporarily stops transferring data whenever the drive deasserts the IORDY signal. When the drive reasserts the IORDY signal, the host continues the data transfer.

Format
A process that prepares a hard drive to store data. Low-level formatting sets up the locations of sectors so user data can be stored in them. Western Digital hard drives are low-level formatted at the factory and therefore do not need to be low-level formatted by the end user. You need to perform a high-level format (with EZ-Drive or the Format command) on your new Western Digital hard drive before you can use it. Formatting erases all the information on a hard drive and it sets up the file system needed for storing and retrieving files.

Formatted Capacity
The actual capacity available to store data in a mass storage device. The formatted capacity is the gross capacity minus the capacity taken up by the overhead data required for formatting the media.

Form Factor
The industry standard that defines the physical and external dimensions of a particular device.

Full-Duplex
A communication protocol that permits simultaneous transmission in both directions.

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Recovery Raid 5 (Step By Step)

Software: Getway Raid Recovery 2.0;
RAID Type: RAID 5 with 3 drives, 1 drive defect;
Factory Type: IBM
Malfunction Description: Sudden RAID damaged, all in the state of “DDD”, RAID corrupted by replacing the hard disk order off-line or push-pull, all the files lost.

Step 1: Analyze Mode Selection

Select the “Smart Mode”, and then click the “Next” button.

(Once you get a RAID recovery case, we usually suggest you firstly select “Smart Mode“, It is the  most convenient and efficient Mode: Fast, Intelligent. Certainly, if you clearly know the RAID details, you can recover the data by directly using either the Manual Mode or User-defined Mode.)

Recovery Raid 5

Step 2: Load Image & Set Raid Parameters

The default set is Factory Type as “Standard” and the Raid Type as ” Raid 5″ (you can select the right Factor Type and the Raid Type according to your RAID Array), and then click the “Next” button to rebuild and recover the RAID Array.

Recovery Raid 5

Step 3: Analyze & Export Image

A) Analyze:
Click the “Analyze” button after your finish the parameter setup. Getway RAID Recovery software will display the parameters and the right disk order of your RAID Array, and also you can view the reconstructed partition information.

Recovery Raid 5

B) File View:

Select one partition and click “File View” button, a file browser will be popped up. You can view the folders and the files from the browser after successfully analyze. You will know the analysis was successful or not by this step.

Recovery Raid 5

Recovery Raid 5

C) Export Image:

After you verify the authenticity of the data, and also you sure you want to get the data back, you can purchase a License Key and activate the software. The detailed operations are as follow: after you get the License key, please click the “About” button and input the ID and License Key to activate the software.

Recovery Raid 5

Then you can export the partition as the image files or export the image to other hard disk.

Recovery Raid 5

Attention: Please don’t export the image to your system disk, otherwise it will cover the data which on your system disk.

Recovery Raid 5

Rebuild RAID:
Verify the authenticity of the image files, and then reload the image files to the new RAID Array. RAID Recovery is successful.

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Seagate announced the world’s fastest 2.5-inch laptop PC hard drive

May 24, 2010 – Seagate announced channel and OEM shipments of the Momentus ® XT hard drive, the world’s fastest 2.5-inch laptop PC hard drive, combining SSD-like performance with the massive capacity and much lower cost of HDDs. The Momentus XT drive also features Adaptive Memory™ – a groundbreaking new technology from Seagate that learns and optimizes the drive’s performance to each user by moving frequently used information into the flash memory for faster access. The Momentus XT solid state hybrid drive boots up to 100 percent faster than traditional 5400RPM drives, the mainstream spin speed for laptop PCs, and sets new benchmarks for real-world system performance for laptops and gaming systems.

Today’s high-performance SSDs for mobile computing cost as much as 10 times more than hard disk drives of the same capacity, with the price of a 250GB SSD outstripping even the cost of many laptop PCs. As a result, most consumers and system builders are unwilling or unable to pay the high price for the greater speed and quiet operations of SSDs. Additionally, SSDs offer fewer capacity options than hard disk drives.

Momentus XT, 2.5-inch Solid State Hybrid Drive

The Momentus XT drive is a best-of-both-worlds solution that combines a 7200RPM spin speed, 4GB of solid state memory and Seagate’s Adaptive Memory technology to deliver unprecedented hard drive performance. The unique Adaptive Memory technology works by identifying patterns in how often certain digital data is used, and then moving the most frequently used information to the embedded solid state memory for faster access – effectively tailoring hard drive performance to each user and their applications.

“For notebook PC users looking forward to faster PC performance without sacrificing storage capacity or affordability, now there’s an option, Seagate’s new Momentus ® XT drive is the first storage device for notebook PCs that raises the bar for affordable capacity and performance.” according to John Rydning, IDC’s research director for hard disk drives.

“We see the Momentus ® XT drive as a game changer, a product heralding a new generation of hard drives that combine SSD and HDD capabilities so that laptop users don’t have to make trade-offs on speed, cost or capacity, The feedback we’ve received from customers, industry experts and early reviews has been overwhelmingly positive, and Seagate will continue to drive innovation that provides more value and a better computing experience to consumers.” said Dave Mosley, Seagate executive vice president of Sales, Marketing and Product Line Management.

Momentus ® XT Drive Brings Unprecedented Speed to New ASUS Gaming Laptop PC
ASUS has also announced that it will offer the Momentus XT drive as an upgrade option for its new Republic of Gamers (ROG) G73Jh notebook. The system is powered by an Intel i7 720Qm quad-core processor, 8GB of DDR3 memory, and DX11 capable ATI Radeon Mobility HD 5870.

“With the Momentus ® XT drive, ASUS gives gaming customers who prefer the ASUS ROG G73 the capacity they need and the performance they crave, Seagate’s innovative solid state hybrid drive hands down delivers the best value, capacity and SSD-like performance to a wide audience.”  said PC Wang, vice president of the ASUS Systems Business Group.

The Momentus XT drive installs as easily as a traditional 9.5mm-high notebook drive for new systems or laptop upgrades and, unlike early hybrid drives, operates independently of the operating system and the motherboard chipset.

ASUS and Seagate Unveil the Momentus ® XT Drive and the ROG G73JH with a Live Webcast
On Wednesday, May 26, Seagate and OEM customer ASUS will co-sponsor a live webcast unveiling not only the new Momentus XT solid state hybrid drive, but also featuring the new ASUS ROG G73JH system with two Momentus XT drives. Three lucky attendees of this webcast will win a new G73 system just for attending*. Special guest speakers will provide an in-depth look at how this drive will transform high-performance computing.

For more information visit the Momentus XT drive product page.

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10 Trends in Cloud Data for 2012

Cloud Data,Data Storage,Disaster RecoveryWhen 2010 came to a close, the introduction of new private and hybrid cloud systems was on everybody’s trending-up list. Now, as 2011 plays out, we are able to observe that individuals forecasts were generally correct it had been indeed annually of cloud adoption. 1000’s of recent clouds were architected, built and used throughout the final 12 several weeks, plus they came online in most size marketplaces. Where is trending headed for the following 12 several weeks? The majority of the IT business prognosticators have been in agreement on a minumum of one factor: The bend for cloud-based IT buying will continue “up and right.Inch You will find a lot of cost, deployment and monitoring benefits involved for companies to disregard this. With this particular like a backdrop, eWEEK presents here a couple of forecasts for 2012 within the cloud infrastructure space. Our resource is TwinStrata Boss and co-founder Nicos Vekiarides. TwinStrata offers the CloudArray storage-area network (SAN) which comes either like a cloud service or on the commodity server and may be blocked in to a data center. CloudArray finds data stores wherever they’re and combines them.

Existing Storage Remains Used
For many companies, the idea of moving almost all their data towards the cloud isn’t achievable. However, continuously growing data storage is fueling an excuse for more capacity. Believe to deal with this need compared to cloud storage? The advantages are use of a safe and secure, unlimited pool of storage capacity that never requires upgrade/alternative and reduces capital expense.

Private Clouds Growing in Large Businesses
Businesses searching to leverage the financial systems, efficiencies and scale that cloud companies have accomplished are implementing cloud models in-house for example OpenStack for compute and storage conditions. These private clouds offer scale, agility and cost/performance typically unmatched by traditional infrastructure solutions and, simultaneously, can reside in the company’s firewall.

Disaster Recovery to Cloud Becomes a possible option
Typically, firms that need disaster recovery and business continuity have always needed to depend on devoted duplicated infrastructure in an off-site place to have the ability to get over physical disaster. What this means is having to pay capital expenses for frequently-idle hardware, before the disaster strikes. A DR cloud service means not needing to purchase this infrastructure, except when it’s needed. Trade-off? While zero-down time disaster recovery is going to be unlikely, search for service-level contracts (SLAs) that provide recovery-time objectives (RTOs) within hrs.

DR In the Cloud Can Become essential
What goes on to any or all your computer data that resides within the cloud trapped with a software like a service (SaaS) application within the situation of the disaster? The fact is, most companies will have a tragedy recovery strategy, but how will you create an additional degree of protection that’s beneath your control? Search for a brand new variety of solutions that backup SaaS data either in your area in order to another provider.

Simpler On-Boarding of Programs towards the Cloud
Certain business application could be moved entirely towards the cloud, saving the administration and upkeep of their hardware/software platforms on-site. Companies are searching for tools to create this migration viable, specially the IT-strapped organizations that may help the most. Search for new robust toolsets that may migrate programs to a range of cloud companies.

Nonrelational Databases for Large Data Workloads
NoSQL databases, for example Apache CouchDB, enable great scalability to meet the requirements of terabytes and petabytes of information for countless customers. Large data workloads will pressure a lot of companies to think about these options to traditional databases, and cloud deployment models will simplify the rollout. Search for suppliers supplying supported NoSQL solutions.

Solid-Condition Disk Storage Tiers within the Cloud
Moving greater-performance programs within the cloud does not always guarantee that they’ll get the amount of performance they require using their data storage. By providing high-performance tiers of storage which are SSD-based (mainly NAND expensive), cloud companies will have the ability to address the requirements for foreseeable and faster application response occasions.

Data Reduction Will get Better
With data storage still commanding a per-GB operating expense within the cloud, deduplication and compression technologies have grown to be rather ubiqitous in assisting minimize costs. Although some may argue the capability optimisation game has performed out, there’s still the task of capacity optimisation on the more global scale to lessen aggregate capacity usage across multiple tenants. Furthermore, there remains challenging for wealthy media content, which doesn’t fare particularly well with present day technologies. Search for the development of new data reduction IT that addresses both needs.

More Utilisation of the Cloud for Statistics
Statistics need a scalable compute and storage atmosphere that may be very costly to construct from devoted hardware (i.e., Oracle’s $a million Exalogic database machine). Statistics software may also be an extremely costly area of the proposition. Much like hardware remaining idle for disaster recovery reasons, statistics for a lot of companies might be a periodic exercise that only runs in a nutshell bursts and might not be suited or viable for devoted conditions. Statistics conditions within the cloud turn the periodic expense right into a “pay-per-use” bill, meeting business goals in a cheaper cost point.

‘Cloud-Envy’ Gets To Be More Commonplace
Although companies will adopt clouds in 2012, others can always wait and ponder well past 2012. In most cases, the realization from the financial aspects and efficiencies from the cloud is apparent, although the strategy might be different. In reaction, a few of the laggards could find ideas and applications proven cloud methods that improve IT efficiency on-premise or, regrettably, some may be taken in by cloud-washing by buying traditional IT infrastructure having a cloud title inside a feeble make an effort to satisfy their “cloud-envy.”

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Compact Flash FAQs

Compact Flash What is Compact Flash?

CompactFlash is the world’s smallest removable mass storage device. First introduced in 1994 by SanDisk Corporation, CF TM cards weigh a half ounce and are the size of a matchbook. They provide complete PCMCIA-ATA functionality and compatibility. Compact Flash is a small, removable mass storage commonly used in digital cameras.

Where will CompactFlash be used?
Several leading consumer electronics companies, including the CFA’s roster of founding members, are designing CF technology into next-generation products being developed for mass markets. The CFA expects CF technology will be widely used in such products as portable and desktop computers, digital cameras, handheld data collection scanners, cellular phones, PCS phones, PDAs, handy terminals, personal communicators, advanced two-way pagers, audio recorders, monitoring devices and set-top boxes. CF technology offers all of these applications new and expanded functionality while enabling smaller and lighter designs.

What is the difference between Type I and Type II?
Type I is 3.3mm thick, while Type II is 5mm thick. A CF Type II device will not fit in a Type I slot.

How do I format my Compact Flash drive?
Formatting a Compact Flash drive can be accomplished several ways. The most common method of formatting a Compact Flash drive is within the device in which the Compact Flash drive will be used. This will ensure a device compatible format and the best overall performance.

How do I interface the CF drive with my PC or Mac?
Compact Flash drives are connected to desktop/laptops computers through flash memory card readers. A typical card reader will contain multiple flash memory slots to accommodate the different types of memory. The card readers are most commonly attached to the computer via a USB or IEEE 1394 (FireWire) interface cable.

Do I need drivers for my OS?
Compact Flash drives do not require drivers. However, when the drive is attached through a card reader, the proper drivers for the card reader must be installed before the drive can be accessed.

Can I use this in my PDA? Does this drive require drivers?
The Compact Flash drive can be used in any PDA that will support Compact Flash Type II drives with high capacity. This is not a supported hardware environment.

While many PDA operating systems do not require drivers, some of the older operating systems, such as Windows CE, will require a driver before the drive can be accessed.

Can I install an OS onto this drive?
Depending on the operating system in use, it may be possible to install an OS onto the Compact Flash drive. Since this is not the intended purpose of the drive, the performance may be less than desired and no support will be provided.

What is the speed of my Compact Flash card?
Solid state CF memory cards are differentiated by a speed number:

Compact Flash Speeds
Speed
Kbytes/s
Mbytes/s
1
150
0.15
4
600
0.6
12
1800
1.8
24
3600
3.6
40
6000
6
60
9000
9
80
12000
12

What is the difference between FAT16 and FAT32, why do cards greater than 2GB require FAT32?
File Allocation Tables (FAT) are like a table of contents to your data. Prior to Windows 98, 16-bit FATs limited partitions to 2.1 Gbytes. The newer 32-bit FAT is capable of huge partitions up to two Tbytes (terabytes). Many digital cameras only support 16-bit FAT (FAT), newer cameras and high-end professional cameras usually support 32-bit FAT (FAT32). Check your camera’s manual or support information to determine if your camera supports FAT32 (memory larger than 2.1Gbytes).

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Software rec – How can I use my small SSD as a cache for a larger hard disk?

I would like to use a (small) SSD disk as a cache for a large hard disk. I realize there are hardware-based products that do this: HighPoint RocketHybrid HBA, Intel SmartResponse and others. There is only one software-only product that I could find: ExpressCache by Diskeeper: ExpressCache intelligently and automatically combines the best attributes of…

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