Hard drive terms

Updated: 11/12/2023 by Computer Hope

Hard drive terms with full definitions and information on each term. Explore this list of over 220 terms like storage, drive, SSD, and secondary storage. Navigate quickly through the list by clicking one of the letters below; for example, click 'S' to find terms like 'SATA' in the 'S' section.

Top 10 hard drive terms
Drobo external hard drive storage enclosure

Storage
Hard disk
Secondary storage device
Drive
Jump drive
Permanent storage
Boot partition
IDE
ScanDisk
Disk capacity

Number

1-inch hard drive

A
Anti-vibration mount

AAM
Access arm
Access light
Active partition
Actuator
ADSM
AHCI
Allocation unit
Anti-vibration mount
Array
ATA
ATAPI
AT attachment packet interface

B
Computer Bit and Byte

Bad sector
Basic disk
BIT
Bleachbit
Block
Boot partition
Boot sector
BPB
Bus mastering
Byte

C
C: drive

C:
Cable select
Capacity
C: drive
Channel
CHS
Click of death
Cluster
Contiguous
Contiguous data structure
Cross-linked files
Current drive
Cylinder

D
Disk platter

Daisy chain
DASD
DASP
Data buffer
DBAN
DDO
Deceleration time
Defrag
Defragmentation
Direct access
Disc clone
Disk
Disk access time
Disk capacity
Disk clone
Disk cloning
Disk controller
Disk crash
Disk density
Disk drive
Disk Drive Overlay
Disk driver
Disk duplexing
Disk interface
Disk management
Disk optimizer
Disk partition
Disk partition table
Disk platter
Disk quota management
Disk thrashing
Disk usage
DOS partition
Drive
Drive format
DriveTrust
DS
DSP
DSR
Dynamic disk

E

EB
ECHS
EIDE
Enclosure
Exabyte
exFAT
Extended partition
External drive
External storage

F
fsck command

FAT
FAT12
FAT16
FAT32
Fdisk
FFS
File size
File systems table
Fixed disk
Fixed storage
Flash drive
Floating defects
FM
FNR
Format
Free space
Fsck
Fstab

G

GB
Gigabyte
GParted
GPT

H
Housekeeper on a computer screen

Half-height drive
Hard disk
Hard disk controller
Hard drive
Head
Head crash
Head positioning
Head seek
Head switching
Hellabyte
Hidden partition
High-level format
Housekeeping
HPFS
Hybrid hard drive

I
Interblock gap

IBM Storage Protect
IDC
IDE
Index mark
Index track
Interblock gap
Interleave
Internal storage
Interrecord gap
IRG
iSCSI
iSCSI initiator

J

Jump drive

K

Key
Keyed
Kilobit
Kilobyte

L

LBA
Local drive
Logical drive
Logical partition
Lost cluster
Low-level format
Lzone

M
100 Mbps download speed

Magnetic
Magnetic media
Mass storage
Master
Master Boot Record
MB
MBR
Media
Megabit
Megabyte
MFM encoding
MFT
Microdrive
Mini-SATA
Momentum cache

N

NON-DOS partition
Non-volatile
Non-volatile memory
NTFS
NVRAM

O

Currently, no listings.

P

Park
Partition
Pen drive
Permanent storage
Phdisk
PIO
PK
Platter
Preformatted
Primary
Primary channel
Primary partition

Q

Quettabyte

R
Two IBM 305 RAMAC computers

RAID
RAMAC
RAM disk
Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks
Reformat
Removable hard drive
Retentive
Ribbon cable
Rigid disk
RLL encoding
Ronnabyte
Rotational delay
RPM

S
SATA cables and connection

SATA
SATADIMM
SCA
ScanDisk
Scratch space
SCSI
Secondary channel
Secondary storage device
Sector
Seek time
Selector channel
Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology
Servo motor
Settling time
Size
Slack space
Slave
SMART
Soft-sectored disk
Source data disk
Spindle
Step motor
Storage device
Store
Superblock
System partition

T

TB
Terabyte
Thin-film media
Thrashing
Thumb drive
Time Machine
TPI
Track
Track pitch
Transducer

U

UDMA
Unpark
Used space

V

VBR
VFAT
VHD
Voice coil
Volume label
Volume name

W

Winchester disk drive
Wpcomp
Write error
Write Precomp

X

Currently, no listings.

Y

Currently, no listings.

Z

ZBR
Zebibyte
Zero filling
Zoned recording

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