Glossary

A

activity
See task.
ACU
Array Configuration Utility. An application used to create, configure, and manage arrays from the
controller’s BIOS or MS-DOS.
array
A logical disk created from available space and made up of one or more segments on one or more physical
disks. Arrays are typically used to provide data redundancy or enhanced I/O performance. See volume,
spanned volume, RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 10. Also known as a container.
array initialization
See configure.
ATA
AT Bus Attachment. Standard parallel interface to IDE hard disks typically used in desktop computers and
some entry-level servers. Serial ATA (SATA), is a successor to parallel ATA, which is sometimes referred to
as PATA.
available space/segment
Unused space on a configured disk from which logical devices (arrays) are created. When an array is
deleted, the space that it used is returned to the available space pool.

B

background consistency check
Option that forces the controller to constantly check all portions of disks used by all arrays to see if the disks
can return data from the blocks. See consistency check command.
bad segment
Segment that is in an unknown state.
bootable array
Array configured as the boot device.