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Appendix A: Glossary
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NFS (Network File System)
A method for sharing files over a network. NFS makes it possible to use files
located on another computer on the network as if they were located on your
own machine. A trademark of Sun Microsystems, it is primarily used with UNIX,
but has also been adapted for use with Microsoft Windows operating systems.
Operating system
Basic software that manages and controls operation of a computer. Microsoft
®
Windows
®
and UNIX are operating systems.
RAID
RAID (redundant array of independent disks) is an array of multiple,
independent hard drives that provide high performance and fault tolerance.
The RAID subsystem controller implements several levels of the Berkeley RAID
technology. An appropriate RAID level is selected when the volume sets are
defined or created. This decision is based on drive capacity, data availability,
(fault tolerance or redundancy), and drive performance.
RAID level
RAID level refers to the level of data performance and protection of a volume
set. RAID arrays can be implemented in several ways, using technologies such
as mirroring, striping, duplexing, and parity. The RAID levels supported in the
RAID subsystem are RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 10 and RAID 5.
RAID 0
RAID 0, also known as striping, is the simplest RAID level. RAID 0 does not
involve data redundancy, but it does offer the best high-speed data throughput.
RAID 0 breaks up data into smaller blocks, then writes a block to each drive in
the array.
RAID 1
RAID 1, also known as disk mirroring, writes data simultaneously to several
duplicate drives. If one drive fails, the other drive(s) continues to function as
a single drive until the failed drive is replaced.
RAID 5
RAID 5 is also known as striping with parity at byte level. In RAID 5, both data
and parity information are written to all of the drives in the subsystem. If one
drive in the system fails, the parity information can be used to reconstruct the
data from that drive. All drives in the array system can be used for a seek
operation at the same time, thereby increasing the performance of the RAID
system.