| A | B |
|---|
| Track | a storage channel on disk or tape. On disks, tracks are concentric circles (hard and floppy disks) or spirals (CDs and video discs). 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 eery disk surface. On multiple-platter disks, the cylinder is the sum total of every track with the same track number on every surface. On a floppy disk, a cylinder 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 of 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. An extension to EIDE that enables support for CD-ROM and tape drives |
| Mpeg Decoder | 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 standardized backup tape technology, available for most computer platforms. |
| DAT | Stands for Digital Audio Tape. Backup tape format that offers higher storage capacity at a lower cast than QIC technology. Capacity is from 1 GB to 4 GB and up. |
| DLT | stands for Digital Linear Tape. Backup tape technology developed by DEC. CUrrent storage capacity is up to 50 GB. |
