| A | B |
|---|
| Track | A storage channel on disk or tape. On disks, tracks are concentric circles or spirals. On tapes, they are parallel lines. |
| sector | The smallest unit of storage read or written on a disk. |
| cylinder | The aggregate of all tracks that reside in the same location on every track with the same track number on every surface. On a floppy disk, a cylider comprises the top and corresponding bottom track |
| inductance | a circuit or device in which a change in the current generates an electromotive force. |
| head crash | when read/write heads bang against the surface of the disk. |
| park | Read/write heads move over an unused section of the disk when the computer is powered off. |
| form factor | the physical size of a device as measured by outside dimensions. With regard to a disk drive, the form factor is the overall diameter of the platters and case, such as 3.5 inches or 5.25 inches, not the size in terms oof storage capacity. |
| master | The first IDE or EIDE device on a single IDE channel. If the device is the hard drive on the first IDE channel, the device can be formatted to be the boot disk |
| slave | The second IDE or EIDE device on a single IDE channel. |
| atapi | AT attachment Packet Interface (ATAPI) is an extension to EIDE that enables support for CD-Rom drives, as well as tape drives on an IDE controller. |
| mpeg decoder | MPeg stands for movie picture experts group. This group has developed MPEG digital video compression standards and file formats, including MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 |
| qic | Stands for quarter-inch cartridge. oldest, most stadardized backup tape technology, available for most computer platforms. |
| DAT | Stads for Digital Audio tape. Backup tape format that offers higher storage capacity at a lower cost that QIC technology. |
| DLT | Stands for digital linear tape. Backup tape technology developed by DEC. current storage capacity is up to 50 GB |
