Microcomputer Hardware Week3

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Microprocessor

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Incorporates most or all of the functions of a computer's central processing unit (CPU) on a single integrated circuit (IC, or microchip).

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Open source software

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Free and open source software is software that is liberally licensed to grant the right of users to study, change, and improve its design through the availability of its source code.

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Open source hardware

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Open source hardware is hardware that is designed and offered in the same manner as free and open source software (FOSS). Open source hardware is part of the open source culture and applies the open source concept to hardware. The term usually means that information about the hardware is open to all. This would include the hardware design (i.e.schematics, bill of materials and PCB layout data), as well as a FOSS approach to the software that drives the hardware.

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BIOS

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Boot firmware, designed to be the first code run by a PC when powered on. Identify, test, and initialize system devices/hardware. Sets the machine hardware into a known state, so that software stored on compatible media can be loaded, executed, and given control of the PC after tests are run.

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Coreboot

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(formerly known as LinuxBIOS) is a free software project, endorsed by the Free Software Foundation, aimed at replacing the proprietary BIOS firmware found in most computers with a lightweight system designed to perform only the minimum of tasks necessary to load and run a modern 32-bit or 64-bit operating system.

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Firmware

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The fixed, usually rather small, programs and data structures that internally control various electronic devices. You would have firmware for hard disks, memory cards, calculators, etc. Differs from software because firmware is usually crucial.

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Disk sanitization

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Utilizing a disk cleaning utility to remove the operating system, applications and all data

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Filesystem

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A special-purpose database for the storage, organization, manipulation, and retrieval of data.

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Disk filesystem

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A file system designed for the storage of files on a data storage device, most commonly a disk drive, which might be directly or indirectly connected to the computer. Examples of disk file systems include FAT (FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, exFAT), NTFS, HFS and HFS+, HPFS, UFS, ext2, ext3, ext4, btrfs, ISO 9660, ODS-5, Veritas File System, ZFS and UDF

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Journaling Filesystem

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a file system that keeps track of the changes it intends to make in a journal (usually a circular log in a dedicated area of the file system) before committing them to the main file system. In the event of a system crash or power failure, such file systems are quicker to bring back online and less likely to become corrupted.

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Versioning filesystem

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A versioning file system is any computer file system which allows a computer file to exist in several versions at the same time.

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Flash filesystem

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is a file system designed for storing files on flash memory devices.

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Network filesystem

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A network file system is a file system that acts as a client for a remote file access protocol, providing access to files on a server. Examples of network file systems include clients for the NFS, AFS, SMB protocols, and file-system-like clients for FTP and WebDAV.

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Linux Filesystems

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Linux supports many different file systems, but common choices for the system disk include the ext* family (such as ext2,ext3 and ext4), XFS, JFS, ReiserFS and btrfs.

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Windows Filesystems

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Windows makes use of the FAT and NTFS file systems.

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Microcomputer

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A microcomputer is a computer with a microprocessor as its central processing unit. They are physically small compared to mainframe and minicomputers. Many microcomputers (when equipped with a keyboard and screen for input and output) are also personal computers (in the generic sense)

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File Allocation Table (FAT) Filesystem

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File Allocation Table or FAT is a computer file system architecture now widely used on many computer systems and most memory cards, such as those used with digital cameras. FAT file systems are commonly found on floppy disks, flash memory cards, digital cameras, and many other portable devices because of its relative simplicity.

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NTFS (New Technology File System)

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is the standard file system of Windows NT, including its later versions. Supersedes the FAT file system as the preferred file system for Microsoft’s Windows operating systems. NTFS has several improvements over FAT, not to mention filesystem journaling

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Disk formatting

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The initial part of the process for preparing a hard disk or other storage medium for its first use. includes setting up an empty file system. A disk formatting may setup multiple file systems by formatting partitions for each file system. Low level = using Gparted and wiping...high level = installing filesystems and bootsector

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Boot sector

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A boot sector is a sector of a hard disk, floppy disk, or similar data storage device that contains code for booting programs (usually, but not necessarily, operating systems) stored in other parts of the disk.

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Virtual filesystems

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used to bridge the differences in Windows, Mac OS and Unix filesystems, so that applications can access files on local file systems of those types without having to know what type of file system they are accessing...is an abstraction layer on top of a more concrete file system

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Filesystem fragmentation

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sometimes called file system aging, is the inability of a file system to lay out related data sequentially otherwise called defragmenting

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Character devices

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Character special files or character devices relate to devices through which the system transmits data one character at a time. Often serve for stream communication with devices such as teletype machines, virtual terminals, and serial modems, and usually do not support random access to data.

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Block devices

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Block special files or block devices correspond to devices through which the system moves data in the form of blocks. These device nodes often represent addressable devices such as hard disks, CD-ROM drives, or memory-regions.

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Pseudo device

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Device nodes lacking correspondence with physical devices. Still, provide various functions handled by the OS.

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Buffer

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A region of memory used to temporarily hold data while it is being moved from one place to another. Typically, the data is stored in a buffer as it is retrieved from an input device (such as a keyboard) or just before it is sent to an output device (such as a printer)

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DOS

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DOS, short for "Disk Operating System" is a shorthand term for several closely related operating systems that dominated the IBM PC compatible market between 1981 and 1995. DOS systems utilize a command line interface. By its original design, DOS was a single task operating system. MS and PC DOS would introduce task switching

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DOS commands

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External DOS commands are executable files giving access to operations such as reformatting disks, modifying partitions, transferring OSs, etc. Internal DOS commands are live within the DOS interpreter...they are at your disposal any time a computer has successfully booted into DOS, and are simple commands much like in CLI with Linux.

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NTLDR

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(abbreviation of NT Loader) is the boot loader for all releases of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system up to and including Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 (not Vister). NTLDR is typically run from the primary hard disk drive, but it can also run from portable storage devices such as a CD-ROM, USB flash drive, or floppy disk. NTLDR can also load a non NT-based operating system given the appropriate boot sector in a file.

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Virtualization

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... a term that refers to the abstraction of computer resources. Anything can be virtualized now a days. Desktops, hardware, OSs, Memory/RAM, networks, etc etc etc.

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RAID

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redundant array of inexpensive disks, a technology that allowed computer users to achieve high levels of storage reliability from low-cost and less reliable PC-class disk-drive components, via the technique of arranging the devices into arrays for redundancy. now used as an umbrella term for computer data storage schemes that can divide and replicate data among multiple hard disk drives.

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RAID cont'd

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There are three key concepts in RAID: mirroring, the writing of identical data to more than one disk; striping, the splitting of data across more than one disk; and error correction, where redundant ("parity") data is stored to allow problems to be detected and possibly fixed (known as fault tolerance).

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RAID 3

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The purpose of using RAID is to improve reliability and availability of data, ensuring that important data is not harmed in case of hardware failure, and/or to increase the speed of file input/output.

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Disk array

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is a disk storage system which contains multiple disk drives. Has has cache memory and advanced functionality, like RAID and virtualization (making the difference between disk enclosures, who do not have these extra features).

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Single Point of Failure (SPOF)

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is a part of a system which, if it fails, will stop the entire system from working

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Disk enclosure

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is essentially a specialized chassis designed to hold and power disk drives while providing a mechanism to allow them to communicate to one or more separate computers... Great for extra storage, transferring data, RAIDing, recovering data from damaged systems, networks, etc

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Hot swapping and hot plugging

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are terms used to separately describe the functions of replacing system components without shutting down the system. Hot swapping describes replacing components without significant interruption to the system, while hot plugging describes the addition of components that would expand the system without significant interruption to the operation of the system

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Small Computer System Interface (SCSI)

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is a set of standards for physically connecting and transferring data between computers and peripheral devices. Defines commands, protocols, and electrical and optical interfaces... an intelligent, peripheral, buffered, peer to peer interface. Up to 8 or 16 devices can be attached to a single bus. SCSI uses a protocol method to transfer data between devices on the bus through several "SCSI Bus Phases".

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Partitioning

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The total data storage space of a PC hard disk is divided into at most four, and at least one, primary partitions. One of these can also be an extended partition.

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Primary partition

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A primary partition contains one file system, usually C drive as the default chosen drive now a days

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Extended partition

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Extended
An extended partition is a primary partition which contains secondary partition(s). A hard disk may contain only one extended partition; which can then be sub-divided into logical drives, each of which is (under DOS and Windows) assigned additional drive letters..