LaCie 301138U - Ethernet Disk Mini NAS Server User Manual page 53

LaCie Ethernet Disk mini
User Manual
KB/s – Kilobytes per second. A means of measuring throughput.
LAN (Local Area Network) – A group of computers and associated devices that share a common communication line and
typically share the resources of a single processor or server within a small geographic area.
Mb (Megabit) – Equivalent to 1,000,000 bits.
Mb/s – Megabits per second. A means of measuring throughput. 480Mb/s is equal to 60MB/s.
MB (Megabyte) – Basically means one million bytes, but is actually 1,024 Kilobytes or 1,024 x 1,024 bytes, which equals
1,048,576 bytes.
MB/s – Megabytes per second. A means of measuring throughput.
Media – The material or device used to store information in a storage subsystem, such as a tape cartridge, CD, DVD or disk
drive.
Mount, -ing – To mount is to establish a software (nonphysical) link from a drive to a host computer.
Network – A series of points or nodes interconnected by communication paths. Networks can interconnect with other net-
works and contain subnetworks.
Operating System (OS) – Software that controls the assignment and use of hardware resources such as memory, processor
time, disk space and peripherals. An operating system is the basis on which software (applications) run. Windows, Mac OS
and UNIX are among the most common.
Overwrite – To write data on top of existing data thus erasing the original data.
Partition, -ing – After formatting, the hard drive is not yet ready to store files. It must be divided into sections that will
contain special information required for a Mac or PC to operate and other sections that will contain the files. This process
of dividing up the hard drive is called partitioning. A partition is just one section of the hard drive that will contain either
special data put there by Silverlining or other files and data.
Peripheral – A generic term applied to printers, scanners, mice, keyboards, serial ports, graphics cords, disk drives and
other computer subsystems. This type of peripheral often relies on its own control software, known as a peripheral driver.
Port, hardware – A connection component (SCSI port, for example) that enables a microprocessor to communicate with a
Glossary
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