LaCie d2 SCSI Hard Drive | Glossary |
| page 34 |
Interface- Junction between two items of hardware or software enabling them to exchange information by adopting common physical/logical rules.
KB (KiloByte)- Basically, this means 1,000 bytes, but it is actually 1,024 bytes.
KB/s- Kilobytes per second. A means of measuring throughput
Mb (Megabit) – Equivalent to 1,000,000 bits..
MB (Megabyte)- Basically means one million bytes, but is actually 1,024 Kilobytes or 1,024 x 1,024 bytes, which equals 1,048,576 bytes.
Mb/s – Megabits per second. A means of measuring throughput. 480Mb/s is equal to 60MB/s.
MB/s- Megabytes per second. A means of measuring throughput.
Medium- Physical material, like paper, disk or tape, used to store computer data.
Operating System (OS)- Software that controls the assignment and use of hardware resources such as memory, processor time, disk space and peripherals. An operating system is the basis on which software (applications) runs. Windows 98, Windows NT, Mac® OS and UNIX are among the most common.
Peripheral- A generic term applied to printers, scanners, mice, keyboards, serial ports, graphics cards, diskette drives and other computer subsystems. This type of peripheral often relies on its own control software, known as a peripheral driver.
Port, hardware- A connection component (USB or IEEE 1394, for example) which enables a microprocessor to communicate with a compatible peripheral.
Port, software- A memory address which identifies the physical circuit used to transfer information between a microprocessor and a peripheral.
Software- In a nutshell, software is a set of instructions for the computer. A set of instructions to perform a particular task is called a program. There are two main types of software: system software (operating system such as Mac OS or Windows) which controls the operation of the computer, and application software (programs such as Word or Excel) which enables users to perform tasks such as word processing, spreadsheet creation, graphics, etc.
Storage- In computers, any equipment on/in which information may be kept. PCs generally use disk units and other external