LaCie SAFE manual LaCie Safe Hard Drive

LaCie SAFE Hard Drive	Glossary
User Manual	page 45

erals. An operating system is the basis on which software (applications) run. Windows, Mac OS and UNIX are among the most common.

Overwrite – To write data on top of existing data thus erasing the original data.

Partition, -ing– After formatting, the hard drive is not yet ready to store files. It must be divided into sections that will contain special information required for a Mac or PC to operate and other sec- tions that will contain the files. This process of di- viding up the hard drive is called partitioning.

Peripheral – A generic term applied to printers, scanners, mice, keyboards, serial ports, graphics cords, disk drives and other computer subsystems. This type of peripheral often relies on its own con- trol software, known as a peripheral driver.

RAM (Random Access Memory) – Generally re- ferred to as a computer’s “memory.” An integrated circuit memory chip that allows information to be stored and retrieved by a microprocessor or con- troller. The information can be stored or accessed in any order, and all storage locations are equally accessible.

Seek Time – The amount of time (in thousandths of a second, or milliseconds) that it takes a hard drive’s read/write head to move to a specific loca- tion on the disk. Average seek, then, is the average of a many random samplings all over the disk. Seek time is CPU independent, meaning that seek time is the same for a disk drive, whether it is attached to a computer or not.

Sensor – A device, such as a photoelectric cell, that receives and responds to a signal or stimulus.

Software – In a nutshell, software is a set of in- structions 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 (an operating system such as Mac OS or Windows) which controls the operation of the computer and application software (programs such as Word) which enable users to perform tasks such as word processing, spreadsheet creation, graphics, etc.

Storage – In computers, any equipment in which information may be kept. PCs generally use disk units and other external storage media (diskettes, CD-ROMs, magnetic disks, etc.) for permanent storage of information.

Transfer Rate – The rate at which the drive sends and receives data from the controller. Transfer rates for reading data from the disk drive may not be the same as the transfer rate for writing data to the disk drive. Transfer rates are CPU dependent, meaning that regardless of how great a transfer rate your drive is capable of, the actual transfer rate can only be as fast as the slowest of your hard drive and computer.

USB (Universal Serial Bus) – An external periph- eral interface standard used for communication be- tween a computer and external peripherals over an inexpensive cable.

Utility – Software designed to perform mainte- nance tasks on the system or its components. Ex- amples include backup programs, programs to re- trieve files and data on disk, programs for preparing (or formatting) a disk or and resource editors.

Volume – A desktop mountable storage area, may be a partition of a hard drive, a removable disk or a cartridge. Typically measured in MBs or GBs.