HP Mini 8280 tower Basics of AHCI and RAID Technology

Basics of AHCI and RAID Technology

Definitions

Table 2: Basic AHCI and RAID Definitions

Acronym or term	Description
AHCI	Advanced Host Controller Interface, a specification for hardware and software, is a register interface for
	SATA, intended to add higher speed, NCQ and other features.
ATA	Advanced Technology Attachment.
BIOS	Basic Input/Output System, also known as system ROM.
Chipset	Term used to define a collection of integrated components required to make a PC function.
HDD	Hard disk drive
ICH	The Input/Output Controller Hub. This component includes the mass storage controller. ICH is part of the
	Intel Q45 Chipset
IDE	Integrated Drive Electronics
	Information file (.inf) used by Microsoft® operating systems that support the Plug & Play feature. When
INF	installing a driver, this file provides the operating system needed, information about driver filenames,
	driver components, and supported hardware.
Migration	Term used to describe the movement of data from one configuration or usage model to another.
NCQ	Native Command Queuing.
OS	Operating system
	Piece or software module inside the System BIOS which provides extended support for a particular piece
Option ROM	of hardware. The RAID Option ROM provides boot support for RAID volumes as well as a user interface
	for managing and configuring the system's RAID volumes.
PCH	Platform Controller Hub. This component includes the mass storage controller. PCH is part of the Intel
	Q57/Q67/Q77 chipset
PCI	Peripheral Components Interface.
PCIe	PCI express. A serial version of PCI.
PnP	Plug and Play
RAID	Redundant Array of Independent Disks.
ROM	Read Only Memory.
SATA	Serial ATA
Strip	Set of data on a single hard drive in a RAID 0 volume.
Stripe	Group of all strips going horizontally across all the hard drive members of a RAID volume.
UEFI	Unified Extensible Firmware Interface. Specification defining firmware (BIOS and/or option ROM) that
	initializes hardware subsystems before the OS boot process.

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