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160 Glossary
rpm — Revolutions per minute.
RTC — Real-time clock.
SAS — Serial-attached SCSI.
SATA — Serial Advanced Technology Attachment. A
standard interface between the system board and storage
devices.
SCSI — Small computer system interface. An I/O bus
interface with faster data transmission rates than standard
ports.
SDRAM — Synchronous dynamic random-access
memory.
sec — Second(s).
SEL — System event log. Used in the system
management software to record system events and errors.
serial port — An I/O port used most often to connect a
modem to your system. You can usually identify a serial
port on your system by its 9-pin connector.
service tag — A bar code label on the system used to
identify it when you call Dell for technical support.
simple disk volume — The volume of free space on a
single dynamic, physical disk.
SMART — Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting
Technology. Allows hard drives to report errors and failures
to the system BIOS and then display an error message on
the screen.
SMP — Symmetric multiprocessing. Used to describe a
system that has two or more processors connected via a
high-bandwidth link and managed by an operating
system, where each processor has equal access to I/O
devices.
SNMP — Simple Network Management Protocol. A
standard interface that allows a network manager to
remotely monitor and manage workstations.
spanning — Spanning, or concatenating, disk volumes
combines unallocated space from multiple disks into one
logical volume, allowing more efficient use of all the space
and all drive letters on a multiple-disk system.
striping — Disk striping writes data across three or more
disks in an array, but only uses a portion of the space on
each disk. The amount of space used by a "stripe" is the
same on each disk used. A virtual disk may use several
stripes on the same set of disks in an array. See also
guarding, mirroring, and RAID.
SVGA — Super video graphics array. VGA and SVGA are
video standards for video adapters with greater resolution
and color display capabilities than previous standards.
system board — As the main circuit board, the system
board usually contains most of your system’s integral
components, such as the processor, RAM, controllers for
peripherals, and various ROM chips.
system configuration information — Data stored in
memory that tells a system what hardware is installed and
how the system should be configured for operation.
system diskette — See bootable diskette.
system memory — See RAM.
System Setup program — A BIOS-based program that
allows you to configure your system’s hardware and
customize the system’s operation by setting features such
as password protection. Because the System Setup
program is stored in NVRAM, any settings remain in
effect until you change them again.
system.ini file — A start-up file for the Windows
operating system. When you start Windows, it consults
the system.ini
file to determine a variety of options for the
Windows operating environment. Among other things,
the system.ini file records which video, mouse, and
keyboard drivers are installed for Windows.
TCP/IP — Transmission Control Protocol/Internet
Protocol.
termination — Some devices (such as the last device at
each end of a SCSI cable) must be terminated to prevent
reflections and spurious signals in the cable. When such
devices are connected in a series, you may need to enable
or disable the termination on these devices by changing
jumper or switch settings on the devices or by changing
settings in the configuration software for the devices.