Chapter 10: Implementing Hard Drives

Front 1

Active partition

Back 1

A primary partition that contains the OS on a hard drive.

Front 2

Basic disk

Back 2

HD partitioned in the “classic” way with a MBR or GPT and a partition table.

Front 3

Chkdsk

Back 3

Cmd line launched error detection utility.

Front 4

Cluster or file allocation unit

Back 4

Basic unit of storage on a HD. These contain multiple sectors. The FAT or MFT tracks how files are distributed on the drive.

Front 5

Data structure or file system

Back 5

Official jargon term for FAT. Scheme that directs how OS stores and retrieves data from drive.

Front 6

Defragment

Back 6

Files on a disk are rewritten in contiguous clusters improving disk speed.

Front 7

Disk cleanup

Back 7

Windows utility that removes temporary Internet files, unused programs, etc.

Front 8

Disk initialization

Back 8

Process that places special info on every windows system hard drive. Must be done before use.

Front 9

Disk management

Back 9

Graphical HD partitioning and configuration program.

Front 10

Disk quota

Back 10

Application that allows admin to limit the hard drive space available to users.

Front 11

Disk utility

Back 11

Mac OS X tool that checks for hard drive errors.

Front 12

Dynamic disk

Back 12

Windows feature that enables volumes (as opposed to partitions) to span across 2 or more disks. Can be striped, mirrored, or both with parity.

Front 13

EFS (encrypting file system)

Back 13

Part of the NTFS that can apply a cipher to stored data.

Front 14

Error checking

Back 14

Windows graphical tool that scans and fixes HDs. (chkdsk or Check Disk). Mac OS X equivalent is Disk Utility. Linux-fsck.

Front 15

ECC (error correction code)

Back 15

Software embedded on HDs that scans for bad sectors.

Front 16

exFAT or FAT64

Back 16

File system that breaks the 4 GB file-size barrier. Used with flash media exceeding 2 TB and up to 16 EB.

Front 17

Extended partition

Back 17

Not one of MBR’s four primary partitions. These are non-bootable HD partitions. 1 per disk. Divides a large disk into smaller partitions with separate drive letters.

Front 18

FAT32

Back 18

File allocation table that uses 32 bits to address and index clusters. In in USB flash media drives and windows versions pre-XP. Files up to 4 GB and drives up to 2 TB.

Front 19

FAT16

Back 19

File allocation table that uses 16 bits to address and index clusters. Used in primary DOS, early windows 95 or 2GB or less flash devices.

Front 20

FDISK

Back 20

Disk partitioning utility used is DOS and windows 9x systems.

Front 21

FAT (file allocation table)

Back 21

Hidden table that records how files are stored in clusters that enable DOS to access files. Mirrored into 2 copies in case one is damaged.

Front 22

Format

Back 22

Used in command-line to format a storage device.

Front 23

Ext4 (fourth extended file system)

Back 23

File system used by most Linux distros.

Front 24

Fragmentation

Back 24

Non contiguous files and directories that can slow HD access times.

Front 25

Fsck

Back 25

Linux command-line tool that checks for HD errors.

Front 26

Full format

Back 26

Format process that tests every sector to mark out the unusable ones in the file allocation table.

Front 27

GPT (GUID partition table)

Back 27

Partioning scheme that allows the creation of more than 4 primary partitions without using dynamic disks.

Front 28

HFS+ (hierarchical file system plus)

Back 28

Default Mac OS X file system.

Front 29

High-level formatting

Back 29

Mapping of bad sectors. Format that sets up a file system on a drive.

Front 30

Logical drive

Back 30

Sections of an extended partition on a HD that are formatted and assigned a drive letter. Presented as a separate drive.

Front 31

MBR (master boot record)

Back 31

Instructions contained within the first sector. This code takes control of the boot process from BIOS.

Front 32

MFT (master file table)

Back 32

Enhanced file allocation table used by NTFS. Stores a backup copies at the beginning and middle of the disk.

Front 33

Mirror set

Back 33

Drives.2 drives create a mirrored volume similar to RAID 1.

Front 34

Mirror space

Back 34

Storage space that mirrors files across 2 or more drives like RAID 1 or RAID 10.

Front 35

Mirrored volumes

Back 35

Type of dynamic disks. RAID 1 volumes. Volume that is mirrored to another volume.

Front 36

Mount point

Back 36

Drive that functions like a folder mounted into another drive.

Front 37

NTFS (new technology file system)

Back 37

Windows format of choice currently. Robust and secure file system introduced with windows NT offers access on a file-by-file basis, object-level security, long filename support, compression and encryption.

Front 38

Parity space

Back 38

Storage space that adds resiliency similar to RAID 5 or RAID 6.

Front 39

Partition

Back 39

Section of storage area of a HD. Created during initial preparation before formating.

Front 40

Partition boot sector

Back 40

Stores info for booting from the partition such as the OS boot files.

Front 41

Partition table

Back 41

Table located in the boot sector of the HD that describes the number and size of the partitions on the disk.

Front 42

Partitioning

Back 42

Electronically subdividing a physical HD into groups called partitions or volumes.

Front 43

Primary partition

Back 43

Partition of a windows HD that can store a bootable OS.

Front 44

Quick format

Back 44

High-level formatting that creates just the FAT and a blank root directory. Does not mark bad sectors.

Front 45

RAID 5 volume

Back 45

Type of dynamic disks. Software based volume made of 3 or more dynamic disks with equal-sized unallocated space.

Front 46

Simple space

Back 46

Storage space that is just pooled storage.

Front 47

Simple volumes

Back 47

Type of dynamic disks. Acts like a primary partition. Does not support OS installation.

Front 48

Spanned volumes

Back 48

Type of dynamic disks. Uses unallocated space on multiple drives to create a single volume.

Front 49

Stripe set

Back 49

Drives (2 or more) that are used for a striped volume.

Front 50

Striped volumes

Back 50

Type of dynamic disks. RAID 0 volumes. Data is spread across 2 drives for increased speed.

Front 51

Storage pool

Back 51

Featured in Windows 8 and later. One or more physical drives can be grouped into a single storage space.

Front 52

Storage spaces

Back 52

Featured in Windows 8 and later, software that functions like a RAID setup tool.

Front 53

Thin provisioning

Back 53

Storage space that reports a size greater than the actual capacity with the ability to add physical capacity later.

Front 54

Volume

Back 54

A drive structure created with a dynamic disk.

Front 55

Sector

Back 55

The base storage area for hard drives. Can store up to 512 bytes of data.

Front 56

0000, FFFF, FFF7

Back 56

Open for use, End of file, Bad cluster respectively.