| A | B |
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| Track | A storage channel on disk or tape. On disks, tracks are concentric circles or spirals. On tapes, they are parallel lines. |
| Sector | The samllest unit of storage read or written on a disk. |
| Cylinder | The aggregate of all tracks that reside in the same location on every disk surface. On multiple-platter disks, the cylinder is the sum total of every track with the same track number on every surface. |
| 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 | 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 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 cost 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. |
