What is RAID?

RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) is a set of technology

standards for teaming disk drives to improve fault tolerance and
performance.

RAID Levels

Level Name
0 Striping
1 Mirroring
2 Parallel Access with Specialized Disks
3 Synchronous Access with Dedicated Parity Disk
4 Independent Access with Dedicated Parity Disk
5 Independent Access with Distributed Parity
6 Independent Access with Double Parity

Choosing a RAID Level

Each RAID level represents a set of trade-offs between performance,

redundancy, and cost.

RAID 0 -- Optimized for Performance

RAID 0 uses striping to write data across multiple drives simultaneously.
This means that when you write a 5GB file across 5 drives, 1GB of data is
written to each drive. Parallel reading of data from multiple drives can have
a significant positive impact on performance.
The trade-off with RAID 0 is that if one of those drives fail, all of your data is
lost and you must retore from backup.
RAID 0 is an excellent choice for cache servers, where the actual data being
stored is of little value, but performance is very important.

What is striping?
Striping is the automated process of writing data across multiple drives
simulteneously. Striping is used to increase the performance of disk reads.
When using striping, if you write a 5GB file across 5 drives, 1GB of data is
written to each drive. Parallel reading of data from multiple disks can have a
significant positive impact on performance, because the physical disk drive
is most often the performance bottleneck.
Striping is used in RAID Level 0.

1
If one drive in a striped set fails, all of the data in the stripe set is lost. The
data must be restored from backup. Because of this, striping is often
combined with the use of parity (RAID 5) or mirroring (RAID 0+1).

Performance Problems Cause by Striping

Striping, when combined with parity, can have a negative performance

impact on write operations. This is because some of the data used to
calculate parity may be stored on the disk already. This means that the
process to write to the array is:

1. Read the existing data

2. Calculate the parity
3. Write the new parity
4. Write the new data

RAID 1 -- Optimized for Redundancy

RAID 1 uses mirroring to write data to multiple drives. This means that
when you write a file, the file is actually written to two disks. If one of the
disks fails, you simply replace it and rebuild the mirror.
The tradeoff with RAID 1 is cost. With RAID 1, you must purchase double
the amount of storage space that your data requires.

What is mirroring?
Mirroring is the automated process of writing data to two drives
simulteneously. Mirroring is used to provide redundancy.
If one drive fails, the redundant drive will continue to store the data and
provide access to it. The failed drive can then be replaced and the drive set
can be re-mirrored.
Mirroring is used in RAID Level 1.

Software Mirroring vs. Hardware Mirroring

Disk mirroring can be implemented entirely in software. Software mirroring

can be less expensive, but it is also slower. Software mirroring requires the
host computer to write the mirrored data twice.
Disk mirroring can be implemented in hardware on the host I/O controller.
The burden of writing each bit of data twice is placed upon the I/O
controller, which is specifically designed for it.
Disk mirroring can also be implemented in hardware on an external storage
device, such as a RAID array. In this case, mirroring is completely removed
from the hosts responsibility.

2
Hot Swappable Hardware

If the hardware is hot swappable, it is possible to replace a failed disk

without powering off the computer. You take out the old drive and put in the
new drive with no service outage.
If the hardware does not support hot-swap, you must schedule a service
outage, shut down and power-off the system, and then replace the drive.

Mirroring vs. Duplexing

Mirroring is the technique of using redundant disks. Duplexing is mirroring,

with the addition of redundant host I/O controllers.
If you are using mirroring and your host I/O controller fails, you will not be
able to access your data until you replace the host I/O controller. With
duplexing, your data will still be available through the redundant controller.

RAID 5 -- A Good Compromise

RAID 5 stripes data across multiple disks. RAID 5, however, adds a parity
check bit to the data. This slightly reduces available disk capacity, but it also
means that the RAID array continues to function if a single disk fails. In the
event of a disk failure, you simply replace the failed disk and keep going.
The tradeoffs with RAID 5 are a small performance penalty in write
operations and a slight decrease in usabable storage space.

RAID 0+1 -- Optimize for Performance and Redundancy

RAID 0+1 combines the performance of RAID 0 with the redundancy of
RAID 1.
To build a RAID 0+1 array, you first build a set of RAID 1 mirrored disks and
you then combine these disk sets in a RAID 0 striped array.
A RAID 0+1 array can survive the loss of one disk from each mirrored pair.
RAID 0+1 cannot survive the loss of two disks in the same mirrored pair.

What is ATA?
ATA (AT Attachment) is the primary standard for connecting storage to PC's.
ATA replaced earlier technologies such as MFM, RLL, and ESDI. ATA
currently competes with SCSI.
ATA is a specification for attaching hard drives to the AT bus. The AT
specification has been extended to include other storage, such as CD/DVD
drives, tape drives, and Zip drives with the Advanced Technology
Attachment Packet Interface (ATAPI) additions to the specification.
ATA is also known as IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics).

3
Parallel ATA Cables

Parallel ATA cables originally had 40 wires.

With the introduction of ATA-5, parallel ATA cables with 80 wires became
standard.
Only 40 wires are used to carry signals. The additional 40 wires exist to
provide a ground wire for each signal wire.
These grounding wires enable the ATA subsystem to operate at higher
speeds with greater reliability.

ATA Masters and Slaves

Each ATA bus supports two storage devices. The first storage device is
called the Master and the second storage device is termed the Slave.
There are two methods for configuring which device is the master and which
is the slave: drive jumpers and cable select.

Drive Jumpers
The original method for configuring Master and Slave
relationships on ATA drives was to place or remove jumpers on
each storage device.
The jumper definitions differ among drive manufacturers and
models. The jumper setting are often printed on the drive. If
not, read the drive manual or visit the drive manufacturers web
page.
In a single drive configuration, some drives should be set to
"Single Drive", while other drives should be set to "Master".
In a dual drive configuration, one drive should be set to Master
and the other drive should be set to Slave.

Cable Select

4
 A newer standard for configuring Master/Slave relationships on
ATA drives is to allow the position of the drives on the drive
cable to determine the ordering.
For Cable Select to work, both of the drives and the ATA cable
must support cable select.
To use Cable Select, the jumpers on both drives should be set
to Cable Select.

Parallel ATA vs. Serial ATA

All versions of ATA up until ATA-7 in 2004 utilized parallel transfer of data
from the motherboard to the drive controller built onto the disk.
The ATA-7 specification introduced Serial ATA.
The most obvious change with Serial ATA is the difference in drive cables.
Other differences include:

• Higher throughput
• Revised power connector
• Longer data cables
• Support for external drives (eSata)

What is ATAPI?
ATAPI stands for AT Attachment Packet Interface.
ATAPI is a set of extensions to the ATA standards to allow ATA CD/DVD
drives and tape drives.

5
The ATAPI standard was originally defined by the Small Form Factor
committee. Maintenance of the ATAPI standard was later transferred to the
T13 Technical Committee, the group that defines the ATA standard. The
ATAPI standard ceased to exist as a separate document when it became
part of the core ATA standard with the publication of ATA-4 in 1998.

ATAPI Drivers

Microsoft Windows and most PC-based Unixes provide a generic driver for all
ATAPI based CD-ROM devices.
Because of this, you do not need to download and install an ATAPI driver if
you are using one of those operating systems.
Early ATAPI CD-ROM drives required specialized drivers for use under DOS.
If you are running DOS, visit the web page of the company which
manufactured your CD-ROM drive to try to find an ATAPI driver.

Booting from an ATAPI Device

Phoenix Technologies and IBM developed the El Torito Bootable CD-ROM

Format Specification.
Systems which are El Torito compatible are able to boot from ATAPI CD-
ROM drives.

What is Serial ATA?

Serial ATA is an enhancement to the ATA standard for for connecting
storage to PC's.
All versions of ATA up until ATA-7 in 2004 utilized parallel transfer of data
from the motherboard to the drive controller built onto the disk.
The ATA-7 specification introduced Serial ATA.

Serial ATA Standards

The original Serial ATA standard offered miniminal improvement over the
existing 133MBps bandwidth of the existing Parallel ATA standard.
Serial ATA standards are constantly evolving to meet higher bandwidth
requirements.
Serial ATA Type Bandwith Bus Speed Signal Rate
SATA-150 150MBps 1500MHz 1.5Gbps
SATA-300 300MBps 3000MHz 3.0Gbps
SATA-600 600MBps 6000MHz 6.0Gbps

Serial ATA Data Cables

6
Higher bandwidth requirements were pushing requirements for shorter
Parallel ATA data cables. Serial ATA reversed this trend by allowing data
cables up to 1 meter in length.
eSATA (External SATA) allows the use of shielded cables up to 2 meters in
length for external drives.

Serial ATA Power Cables

The serial ATA power cable uses a 15-pin wafer connector to provide 3.3, 5,
or 12 volts to ATA devices.

Serial ATA Power Cables

The serial ATA power cable uses a 15-pin wafer connector to provide 3.3, 5,
or 12 volts to ATA devices.

7
What is eSATA?
eSATA is an extension to Serial ATA standards to enable SATA drives to be
attached externally.
Before eSATA, external hard drives were connected via USB or FireWire.
eSATA can provide data transfer rates significantly faster than USB or
FireWire.
eSATA 1.5 offers data rates up to 150MBps. eSATA 3G doubles that to
300MBps.
eSATA cables can be up to 2 meters (approximately 6 feet) in length.
eSATA drives are hot-pluggable, meaning that you can attach or remove an
eSATA hard drive from a system without powering down the system or the
drive.

What is SCSI?

8
SCSI (Small Computer System Interface) is a set of ANSI standards for
connecting devices to computer systems. The vast majority of SCSI devices
are data storage devices.
Standard SCSI is a parallel technology, but many serial SCSI variants exist,
including FireWire and Fibre Channel.
SCSI is generally considered a higher-end alternative to IDE (Integrated
Drive Electronics). A single IDE controller can control two drives. A single
SCI controller can control 8 or 16 drives. In addition, SCSI usually offers
greater cable length and higher length than IDE.

SCSI Standards

Cable Speed Devices

SCSI Standard
Length (MBps) Supported
SCSI-1 6 5 8
SCSI-2 6 5-10 8 or 16
Fast SCSI-2 3 10-20 8
Wide SCSI-2 3 20 16
Fast Wide SCSI-2 3 20 16
Ultra SCSI-3,8-bit 1.5 20 8
Ultra SCSI-3,16-bit 1.5 40 16
Ultra-2 SCSI 12 40 8
Wide Ultra-2 SCSI 12 80 16
Ultra-3 (Ultra160/m)
12 160 16
SCSI

Narrow and Wide SCSI

Many SCSI standards have options for Narrow or Wide operation. Narrow
SCSI is parallel SCSI which transmits 8 bits of data at a time. Wide SCSI is
parallel SCI which transmits 16 bits of data at a time.

What is iSCSI?
iSCSI stands for internet SCSI, or internet Small Computer Systems
Interface.
iSCSI is the transmission of SCSI commands and data over IP networks.

How iSCSI Works

9
When an application attempts to read from an iSCSI device, the SCSI read
command is encapsulated inside an IP packet. The IP packet is then routed
just like any other IP packet on the network. When the IP packet reaches its
destination, the encapsulation is stripped off and the SCSI read command is
interpreted by the iSCSI drive.
SCSI write commands are handled in the same manner.

Alternatives to iSCSI

The main competitor to iSCSI is FCIP (Fibre Channel over IP).

iSCSI and FCIP represent almost opposite approaches to the situation.
FCIP is an implementation of IP on Fibre Channel hardware, whereas
iSCSI is an implementation of SCSI on IP hardware.

What is an external hard drive?

An external hard drive is any hard drive which attaches to a port on the
outside of a computer case.
External hard drives are extremely useful for backing up computers and for
moving data between computers.

External Hard Drive Interfaces

External hard drives can be connected using several popular interfaces. One
external hard drive may support two or more of these interfaces.

FireWire
FireWire, almost known as IEEE 1394, is a popular interface for Macintosh
external hard drives, and became somewhat popular on PC's before USB 2.0
was standardized.

USB
USB (Universal Serial Bus) is a standard for connecting a wide range of
devices, including external hard drives, PDA's, and Sony PlayStations.
USB 1.x was not fast enough to satisfy most users of external hard drives.
USB 2.0 provides slightly better performance than FireWire in most
applications.

eSATA
eSATA is the newest standard for external hard drives.
eSATA is an extension of the Serial ATA standard which allows the use of
external hard drives.
An external hard drive using an eSATA connection will not suffer a
performance penalty imposed by encapsulating the ATA data inside the USB
or FireWire protocols, because the eSATA external hard drive uses the same
communications protocol as the internal hard drives.

10
Ethernet
A few external hard drives offer Ethernet connections.
These drives include intelligent electronics to enable them to act like file
servers.
These external hard drives are actually low-end network attached storage
devices.

What is LBA?
LBA is Logical Block Addressing.
Early PC hard drives were supported by the PC BIOS using
Cylinder/Head/Sector addressing.
To read or write from a specific sector on the disk, you specified the sector
in terms of its cylinder number, its head number, and its sector number.
LBA adressing uses just one number. In LBA addressing, the first sector on
the disk is sector zero and all sectors on the disk are simply incremented
from there.

What is the MBR?

The MBR is the Master Boot Record.
The MBR is a small program which runs whenever a computer boots up.
The MBR is stored in the first sector of the boot disk.
The boot disk may be a hard drive, a floppy drive, or even a CD or DVD
drive.

The Task of the MBR

The normal job of the MBR program is to search the partition table for the
active partition, copy the boot sector from the active partition into memory,
and transfer control over to that program.
If the MBR cannot accomplish this task successfully, it will print one of these
error messages:

• Invalid partition table

• Error loading operating system
• Missing operating system
•

The MBR and Boot Sector Viruses

Some boot sector viruses overwrite the MBR.

If you believe this has happened to one or more of your disk, run an anti-
virus tool to clean your disks.

11
FDISK /MBR

Under DOS and early versions of Microsoft Windows, it was possible to use
the `FDISK /MBR` command to repair the MBR.
Unfortunately, FDISK was not terribly intelligent about the repair and this
option would often cause more damage than it fixed. FDISK has been
removed Windows XP.

FIXMBR

Microsoft Windows 2000/XP/2003 provide the `FIXMBR` command in the

Recovery Console.
The `FIXMBR` command replicates the functionality of the `FDISK /MBR`
command, along with it's associated problems.
Before attempting to repair your MBR, be certain to completely back up all
of your data.

What is a NAND Drive?

NAND drives are high-capacity, high-speed, solid-state flash memory drives.
Thanks to new advances in technology, these drives have been chosen to
become the latest drive preference for laptop computers (hopefully in the
near future). When comparing the NAND to other types of flash memory,
NAND drives have several noteworthy advantages.
The term "NAND" refers to the architecture of the chip which differs it from
NOR (NOT OR) flash memory. NOR flash memory is most widely used in
devices in which small programs are executed in place rather than written to
Random Access Memory (RAM). PDAs, cell phones, and similar devices
function with the help of NOR flash memory. NOR flash memory is
considered to be ideal for applications that require less memory and perform
most of the work on unchanging code (for example, boot directions or
operating systems).
However, for changing data, NAND drives are superior to NOR flash
memory. The chip is designed to allow more memory to be included into the
same size space, thus creating a product that is not only useful, but also
very efficient. This allows NAND drives to write data into the disk at a
greater speed, unlike the typical flash memory that must wipe out memory
blocks before writing to them. NAND drives also boast a longer lifespan of
more erase cycles. These features make NAND drives an ideal choice for
high capacity storage and manipulation of changing data.
NAND drives also have several noted advantages when compared with more
traditional hard drives. The solid-state nature of the drive is one of the core
advantages. Solid-state refers to the fact that NAND drives do not have any
moving parts that can break down. Secondly, NAND drives function much
faster than traditional hard drives. Similar to USB flash drives, NAND drives
do not make any noise while functioning. Finally, NAND drives consume less
power, which is essential for laptop users.

12
What is a Memory Stick?
A Memory Stick is an IC (Integrated Circuit) which is stored in a compact
and rugged plastic enclosure. Memory Sticks are designed to store data and
to enable the transfer of data between devices equipped with Memory Stick
slots.
The Memory Stick standard was introduced by Sony in October of 1998.
Current Memory Stick capacities range up to 512MB.
A Memory Stick is 50mm long, 21.5mm wide, and 2.8mm thick.
An even more compact format, Memory Stick Duo, is 32mm long, 20mm
wide, and 1.6mm thick.
The theoretical transfer speed of Memory Stick is 160Mbps.

What is Compact Flash?

A Compact Flash card is an IC (Integrated Circuit) which is stored in a
compact and rugged plastic enclosure. Compact Flash cards are designed to
store data and to enable the transfer of data between devices equipped with
Compact Flash slots.
Current Compact Flash capacities range up to 4GB.
Compact Flash Type I cards are 43mm long, 36mm wide, and 3.3mm thick.
Compact Flash Type II cards are 43mm long, 36mm wide, and 5mm thick.
The theoretical transfer speed of Compact Flash 2.0 is 16MB/sec.
The Compact Flash standard was introduced by SanDisk Corporation in
1994.

Compact Flash Plus (CF+)

Compact Flash Plus (CF+) extends Compact Flash to provide functionality

such as micro hard drives, modems, Ethernet cards, 802.11 Wi-Fi cards,
serial cards, Bluetooth cards, and more.
This makes Compact Flash the most versatile of the flash media formats.

13
What is a SD Card?
A SD Card (Secure Digital Card) is an IC (Integrated Circuit) which is stored
in a compact and rugged plastic enclosure. SD Cards are designed to store
data and to enable the transfer of data between devices equipped with SD
Card slots.
Current SD Card capacities range up to 1GB.
A SD Card is 32mm long, 24mm wide, and 2.1mm thick.
An even more compact format, the miniSD Card, is 20mm long, 21.5mm
wide, and 1.4mm thick.
The theoretical transfer speed of a SD 1.0 Card is 12.5MB/s. SD 1.1 is
expected to raise this to 50MB/s.
The SD Card standard was introduced by Toshiba, Matsushita Electric, and
SanDisk in 1999.

SDIO

SDIO extends the SD Card standard to include 802.11b WiFi cards,

Bluetooth cards, modems, GPS receivers, TV tuners, cameras, digital
recorders, scanners, fingerprint scanners and more.

14
What is a MultiMediaCard (MMC)?
A MultiMediaCard (MMC) is an IC (Integrated Circuit) which is stored in a
compact and rugged plastic enclosure. MultiMediaCard (MMC)s are designed
to store data and to enable the transfer of data between devices equipped
with MultiMediaCard (MMC) slots.
The MultiMediaCard (MMC) standard was introduced in November of 1997
by SanDisk and Siemens AG/Infeneon Technologies AG.
Current MultiMediaCard (MMC) capacities range up to 2GB.
A MultiMediaCard (MMC) is 32mm long, 24mm wide, and 1.4mm thick.
MultiMediaCards can be used in SD Card readers and writers.
The theoretical transfer speed of a MultiMediaCard is 2.5MB/s.

What is HD-DVD?
HD-DVD is an optical sotrage format developed by Toshiba and Hitachi.
HD-DVD uses a 405nm wavelength blue-violet laser and an 0.65nm pickup
aperture. HD-DVD's are coated with a 0.6mm protective surface layer,
which is the same thickness used in DVD's.
Single-layer HD-DVD disks currently store 15GB of data, which dual-layer
HD-DVD disks are able to store 30GB of data.
The HD-DVD standard supports the following codec's: MPEG-2, Microsoft
Video Codec 1, H.264 / MPEG-4 AVC.
For security, HD-DVD supports mandatory HDCP encrypted output, volume
identifiers and Advanced Access Content System (AACS).

What is Blu-Ray?

15
Blu-Ray is an optical storage format developed by Sony and Phillips. Blu-Ray
was created to store large amounts of high definition video and sound. Blu-
ray gets its name from the type of laser it uses to read and write data from
and to the disc, the color of the laser is a hue of blue-violet. Due to the
extreme density of these optical discs the data needs to be smaller to fit
onto the disc, a blue-violet laser has a shorter wavelength than the normal
red lasers used today.
How does Blu-ray stack up against other types of discs? Well a normal CD
holds about 700 to 800 megabytes of data. A standard DVD holds about 4.7
gigabytes. You can also purchase dual layer DVD's that holds about 9.4 total
gigabytes of data. A HD DVD, which is a new DVD technology that also uses
blue lasers, holds about 25 gigabytes of data and there are reports that test
media can hold up to 200 gigabytes of data. The Blu-ray DVD can usually
hold about 50 gigabytes of data and there are also claims that test media
can hold up to 200 gigabytes of data.
There is currently a market war taking place against both HD DVD's and
Blu-ray DVD's. These two types of DVD's are fighting to see who will be the
new form of media for the years to come. As of yet, neither media type has
made enough inroads to garner a champion.
Obviously the major benefit of Blu-ray DVD's is that it is able to hold more
data on one disc, therefore allowing high definition audio and video. The
more data you have, the more data can be read to give a clearer picture
with more color and vividness.
One of the benefits of Blu-ray technology is that because data is so close
together, early types of Blu-ray discs would be contaminated by slight
scratches. However, a new coating has been developed that makes Blu-ray
discs extremely difficult to scratch.
Blu-ray is looking to make inroads into the consumer electronics market
with the Blu-ray DVD player with its Sony PlayStation. The Sony PlayStation
will include a basic Blu-ray DVD player which might spur sales of media and
make it the de facto standard.
The disadvantages to Blu-ray discs are that they are quite expensive. For
instance, players are selling at about the $1,000 mark and DVD discs will be
more expensive than their standard DVD counterparts. Another
disadvantage is that since there are two standards, both Blu-ray and HD,
most people are sitting on the sidelines to see who the winner is. Because
Blu-ray has been developed in part with Sony, Sony has included DRM or
digital rights management that will make it more difficult for people to place
shift and time shift their content.

Blu-Ray Technology

16
Blu-Ray uses a 405nm wavelength blue-violet laser and an 0.85nm pickup
aperture. Blu-Ray disks are coated with a 0.1mm protective surface layer.
Single-layer Blu-Ray disks currently store 23.3GB of data, which dual-layer
Blu-Ray disks are able to store 46.6GB of data.
The Blu-Ray standard supports the following codec's: MPEG-2, Microsoft
Video Codec 1, H.264 / MPEG-4 AVC.
For security, Blu-Ray supports mandatory HDCP encrypted output, ROM-
Mark watermarking, BD+ dynamic cryptology, and the Advanced Access
Content System (AACS).

What is HVD?
HVD (Holographic Versatile Disc) is the next generation in optical disk
technology. HVD is still in a research phase that would phenomenally
increase the disk storage capacities over the currently existing HD DVD and
Blu-Ray optical disk systems. According to published statistics, when
produced in full scale, HVDs will have a storage capacity of 3.9 terabytes
(39,000 GB) and a data transfer rate of 1 GB/s, which is at least six times
more than the speed of DVD players. This would, without a doubt, become a
giant step in revolutionizing the disk storage industry.
Some industry experts call HVDs a next-next generation technology. This
inference is a direct reference to the enormous storage capacity HVDs offer
compared to HD DVD and Blu-Ray optical disk systems, both of which are
yet to replace DVDs for mass optical storage. HD DVD and Blu-Ray optical
disk systems offer a storage capacity of 75 and 90 GB respectively, but
neither comes anywhere near the massive storage capacity of HVD.

HVD Technology

HVD uses a technology called 'collinear holography,' in which two laser rays,
one blue-green and one red, are collimated into a single beam. The role of
the blue-green laser is to read the data encoded in the form of laser
interference fringes from the holographic layer on the top, while the red
laser serves the purpose of a reference beam and also to read the servo info
from the aluminum layer - like in normal CDs - near the bottom of the disk.
The servo info is meant to monitor the coordinates of the read head above
the disk (this is similar to the track, head and sector information on a
normal hard disk drive).
How do the laser beams selectively pass through the layers? A layer of
dichroic mirrors that exists between the holographic and servo data layer
reflects back the blue-green laser beam, letting only the red laser pass
through it to reach the servo information. By doing so, it actually eliminates
the possible chances of the interference that can happen due to the
refraction of blue-green laser off the servo data pits, a problem that had
affected the efficiency of many holographic storage media in the past.

17
Optical Storage

Most optical storage devices, such as a standard CD (Compact Disc), save

one bit per pulse. HVDs manage to store 60,000 bits per pulse in the same
place, in a truncated cone shape, that has a diameter of 500 micrometers at
the top and 200 micrometers at the bottom. The HVD Alliance is trying to
improve the storage capacity further to touch its dream 3.9 TB mark by
inserting a larger number of cones on each track.

Competing Technologies

In addition to HDV, other proprietary standards are making advances optical

disk technology. Other players exist, such as those made by Hitachi Maxell
Ltd and InPhase Technologies. Tapestry Media - a holographic format
patented by InPhase Technologies - having a storage capacity of 1.6TB and
a data transfer rate of 120 MB/s is one such device, while similar a 300 GB
disks with a data transfer rate of 20 Mbit/s is in the pipeline for Hitachi
Maxell Ltd.

HVD Capacity

• The entire US Library of Congress can be stored on six HVDs,

assuming that every book has been scanned in the text format. The
Library of Congress is the largest in the world and contains over 130
million items.
• The pictures of every landmass on Earth - like the ones shown
in Google Earth - can be stored on two HVDs.
• With MPEG4 ASP encoding, a 3.9 TB HVD can hold anywhere
between 4,600-11,900 hours of video, which is enough for non-stop
playing for a year.

HVD Adoption

The biggest challenge for HVD will be in establishing itself in the commercial
market, which as of now seems to be a distant dream, given its higher cost
margins. It is anticipated that a single HVD, when commercially available,
may cost anywhere between $100-120 (by 2006 year's end), and the reader
will be priced anywhere in the range of $10,000 to $15,000. However, like
anything else associated with technology, the price will soon fall as R&DD
costs are recouped and competitions lowers profit margins.

How do I Install a Hard Drive?

18
If you would like to replace your old hard drive with an upgraded drive, this
is a simple process that can be done at home. Most new hard drives will
come with installation instructions to make the task easier for you.

Steps To install A Hard Drive

• Shut down the computer, and unplug all accessories attached to

it.
• Continue by unplugging the computer completely from its power
source, wait fifteen seconds, and "ground" yourself to prevent
electrical shock.
• Remove the screws holding the computer's cover in place.
• Remove the computers cover and place it gently to the side.
• Locate the computer's old hard drive in the drive bay, and
remove any cables or wires attached to it. The main cables will be a
data cable and a power cable. While removing them, be sure to
document where they attach in order to reattach them.
• Locate the screws used to anchor the hard drive to the frame of
the computer case.
• After the old hard drive has been unscrewed, remove it from the
frame, and screw the new hard drive into place.
• If another hard drive is present, set your jumpers by
determining which drive is the "master" and "slave" for an older drive.
The setting can remain as "single" or "master" when one drive is
installed.
• Reattach the data cable and power cable which were attached to
the originalhard drive.
• Replace the computers cover.
• Plug all cables back into the computer.
• Power on the computer.
• If it is installed correctly, the computer should auto-recognize
the new hard drive.

What is a hard disk partition?

A hard disk partition is a defined storage space on a hard drive.
Most operating systems allow users to divide a hard disk into multiple
partitions, in effect maaking one physical hard disk into several smaller
logical hard disks.

Reasons to Use Hard Disk Partitions

A user may decide to split a hard disk into multiple partitions in order to
organize his data more effectively. On Microsoft Windows machines, it is
common to store the OS and applications on one hard disk partition and
user data on another hard disk partition. When a problem occurs with

19
Microsoft Windows, the OS partition can be completely formatted and
reinstalled without affecting the data partition.
A user may decide to split a hard disk into multiple partitions because
smaller partitions often have smaller cluster sizes. A cluster size is the
smallest chunk of data which a partition can store. A large partition might
have a cluster size of 16KB. This mens that a file with one character in it will
occupy 16KB of space on the disk. In a smaller partition, that file might only
require 4KB to store. This is a useful strategy if you are storing a large
number of small files.
A user may have to split a large hard disk into multiple partitions if the hard
disk is larger than the partition size supported by the operating system.

Creating Hard Disk Partitions

Most operating system use the `fdisk` command to create hard disk
partitions. Many ooperating systems also have graphical tools which
accomplish the same task.

Hard Disk Partitions and File Systems

You don't actually store data in hard disk partitions.

You store file systems in hard disk partitions and then you store data in
these file systems.
Some operating systems blur the lines between partitions and filesystems.

The Partition Table

Partition information is stored in the partition table, a reserved area at the

beginning of a hard disk.

Extended Partitions

A standard partition table is only able to store information about four

partitions. At one time this meant that a hard disk could have a maximum of
four partitions.
To work around this limitation, extended partitions were created.
An extended partition stores information about other partitions. By using an
extended partition, you can create many more than four partitions on your
hard disk.
The four standard partitions are often called the primary partitions.
Partitions configured into an extended partition are often referred to as
logical partitions.

20
Partition Types

When a partition is created, a special byte of data is written to record what

type of partition it is.
Because one hard disk may be shared by multiple operating systems,
operating systems tend to agree on the meaning of these values.
The table below lists some of the partition types in use.
Partition Number Partition Type
00 Empty
01 DOS 12-bit FAT
02 XENIX root
03 XENIX usr
04 DOS 16-bit FAT <=32M
05 DOS Extended Partition
06 DOS 16-bit FAT >=32
07 OS/2 HPFS, WinNT NTFS
08 AIX
09 AIX bootable
0a OS/2 Boot Manager
0b Win95 FAT32
0c Win95 FAT32 (LBA)
0e Win95 FAT16 (LBA)
0f Win95 Extended (LBA)
35 OS/2 JFS
39 Plan 9
40 Venix 80286
51 Novell
52 Microport
63 Unix System V, Mach, GNU HURD
64 Novell Netware 286
65 Novell Netware 386
75 PIC/IX
80 MINIX until 1.4a
81 MINUX, Linux
82 Solaris X86, Linux swap
83 Linux native
85 Linux extended
93 Amoeba

21
94 Amoeba BBT
a5 FreeBSD, NetBSD, BSD/386, 386BSD
a6 OpenBSD
a7 NEXTSTEP
b7 BSDI BSD/386 filesystem
b8 BSDI BSD/386 swap
be Solaris 8 bootable
bf Solaris x86
c7 Syrinx
db CP/M
e1 DOS access
e3 DOS R/O
eb BeOS BFS
fb VMWare filesystem
fc VMWare swap
f2 DOS secondary
ff Xenix Bad Block Table

What is free partition software?

A wide range of free partition software is available. Be very careful when
using any software application which writes to the partition table, the MBR
(Master Boot Record), or the boot sector.
Always backup your hard drive completely before using any free partition
software. If you lose data, you have no one to blame but yourself.

Free Partition Software

Partition Saving
Partition Saving is an MS-DOS based partition backup and recovery
program. Partition Saving can copy a partition to a file.
Partition Saving is intelligent enough to copy only occupied sectors to the
file, if the partition is FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, NTFS or ext2.
Partition Saving is also able to compress data in the partition and split it into
several files. This is especially useful when saving hard drive partitions to
CD's or DVD's.

Partition Image

22
Partition Image is a Linux/Unix utility which saves partitions to an image
file. The image file can be compressed to save disk space, and split into
multiple files to be copied on removable media.
Partition Image will only copy data from the used portions of the partition.
For speed and efficiency, free blocks are not written to the image file.
Partition Image supports ext2fs/ext3fs, ReiserFS, FAT16/32, HPFS, JFS and
XFS.

SystemRescueCd
SystemRescueCd is a Linux system on a bootable CD-ROM for repairing your
system and your data after a crash.
SystemRescueCd also aims to provide an easy way to carry out
administrative tasks on your computer, such as creating and editing the
partitions of the hard disk.
SystemRescueCd contains a lot of system utilities (parted, partimage,
fstools, ...) and basic ones (editors, midnight commander, network tools). It
aims to be very easy to use: just boot from the CD-ROM, and you can do
everything.
The kernel of the system supports ext2/ext3, ReiserFS, XFS, JFS, VFAT,
NTFS, ISO9660, Samba and NFS.

Ranish Partition Manager

Ranish Partition Manager is a powerful hard disk partitioning tool. It gives
users high level of control for running multiple operating systems, such as
FreeBSD, Linux, Windows 98/XP, and FreeDOS on a single disk.
Partition Manager can create, copy, and resize primary and extended
partitions. It includes a command line interface and a simulation mode that
works with large files so that you can safely experiment before working on
the real hard drive partition tables.

eXtended FDisk
eXtended FDisk, or short XFDisk, is a free DOS FDISK replacement that
offers more comfort and comes with a boot manager that allows you to have
more than one operating system installed on your hard disk.
With XFDisk you can partition your hard disk or install and configure the
boot manager, which will be located in the first 17 sectors of your first hard
disk. The boot manager will not occupy a partition, so you can fully use the
four available primary partitions per hard disk. If you choose to have an
extended partition with logical drives on your hard disk, XFDisk
transparently manages the extended partition for you.
XFDisk and the boot manager support more than one hard disk and even
booting from logical drives.

TestDisk

23
TestDisk is a tool to check and undelete partitions.
TestDisk works with the following partition types:

• BeFS ( BeOS )
• BSD disklabel ( FreeBSD/OpenBSD/NetBSD )
• CramFS (Compressed File System)
• DOS/Windows FAT12, FAT16 and FAT32
• HFS, Hierarchical File System
• JFS, IBM's Journaled File System
• Linux Ext2 and Ext3
• Linux Raid
• Linux Swap (versions 1 and 2)
• LVM and LVM2, Linux Logical Volume Manager
• Netware NSS
• NTFS ( Windows NT/2K/XP/2003 )
• ReiserFS 3.5 and 3.6
• UFS (Sun/BSD/...)
• XFS, SGI's Journaled File System

TestDisk runs under DOS/Win9x, Windows NT 4/2000/XP/2003, Linux ,

FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and Sun Solaris.

GNU Parted
GNU Parted is a program for creating, destroying, resizing, checking and
copying partitions, and the file systems on them. This is useful for creating
space for new operating systems, reorganizing disk usage, copying data
between hard drives and drive imaging.
GNU Parted supports operations on ext2, ext3, FAT16, FAT32, Linux Swap,
HFS and HFS+, JFS, NTFS, ReiserFS, UFS, and XFS. All operations are not
supported across all file systems.

The Partition Resizer

Partition Resizer is a small DOS executable which can re-arrange your
partitions safely, quickly and fuss-free.

Free FDISK
Free FDISK is the replacement FDISK which is available in FreeDOS.
Free FDISK features include:

• Supports hard disks up to 128GB in size.

• Has the "standard" fdisk user interface.
• Command-line support is compatible with Microsoft's
undocumented FDISK commands.
• Has extended command-line support to give you complete
control over hard disk configuration from batch files.
• Is designed for both occasional use as well as large scale
automated operating system roll-outs and cloning projects..
• Comes with BootEasy, a compact multi-boot loader.
• Can be customized with an easy to use configuration file.

24
 • Allows the use of boot loaders from other operating systems.
• Free FDISK is Open Source and licensed under the GNU GPL.

MBRWork
MBRWork is a utility to perform some common and uncommon tasks to the
MBR/EMBR/Sectors of a hard drive.
MBRWork is a tool for power users who understand how computers work.

What is a bad sector?

What is a Sector?

A sector is a small area on the surface of a hard drive or a floppy disk.

Hard drives usually have several platters. The platters are the discs which
are covered with magnetic material which is used to hold data. Floppy disk
drives contain only one platter.
Platters are divided into a set of concentric rings called tracks. A 1.44MB
floppy disk has 160 tracks. Hard drives have thousands of tracks.
Each of these tracks is divided into smaller storage areas called sectors. A
sector is the smallest storage area on a disk.

What is a Bad Sector?

Hard drives are contain millions of sectors. It is very normal for some of
these sectors to be bad sectors, even when the drive is first manufactured.
In addition, a small number of sectors will normally go bad during the
lifespan of a drive.
When this happens, the data in those sectors may be lost, but the data on
the rest of the disk will be unaffected and the disk is still completely usable.
A bad sector cannot be repaired, but it can be marked as unusable. Once
marked as unusable, the Operating System will know not to attempt to store
data in that bad sector. The storage capacity of the disk will be decreased
by the amount of storage space in the bad sector.
If your hard drive develops a bad sector, back the hard drive up
immediately. If the bad sector was caused by a faulty drive head, the
problem can quickly spread to other sectors on the disk.

How do I repair a bad sector?

Occasionally one or more sectors on an otherwise good hard drive will go
bad.
When this happens, the data in those sectors may be lost, but the data on
the rest of the disk will be unaffected and the disk is still completely usable.
Those bad sectors can not be repaired, but they can be marked as unusable.
Once marked as unusable, the Operating System will know not to attempt to

25
store data in those bad sectors. The total disk capacity will be decreased by
the amount of storage space in those bad sectors.
If your hard drive is experiencing a bad sector, back it up immediately. If
the bad sector was caused by a faulty drive head, the problem can spread to
many other sectors across the disk.

How to "Repair" a Bad Sector in Windows XP

• Press the <Start> button.

• Select <My Computer>.
• Under Hard Disk Drives highlight the disk which you want to
scan.
• Open the <File> menu and choose <Properties>
• Open the <Tools> tab.
• Click the <Check Now...> button.

In earlier version of Microsoft Windows and DOS, this functionality was built
into the `scandisk` and `chkdsk` utilities.
Once the bad sector or sectors have been "repaired", continue to back up
your hard drive on a regular basis. Hard drives are mechanical devices and
all mechanical devices will eventually fail.

Where is Scan Disk in Win XP?

Scan Disk has been removed from Windows 2000 and Win XP. The
functionality previously found in Scan Disk has been built into Explorer.

How to Scan Disk in Win XP

• Press the <Start> button.

• Select <My Computer>.
• Under Hard Disk Drives highlight the disk which you want to
scan.
• Open the <File> menu and choose <Properties>
• Open the <Tools> tab.
• Click the <Check Now...> button

How does hard drive recovery work?

Hard drives, like all mechanical devices, eventually break down.
Common hard drive problems include:

• User errors
• Software errors
• Hard drive electronics failures
• Hard drive arm failures

26
 • Hard drive platter failures

User Errors

User errors include accidentally deleting or overwriting files and accidentally

formatting a or deleting a partition.
User errors can sometimes be resolved through the use of off-the-shelf data
recovery software.

Software Errors

Software errors usually result from software writing data to the wrong part
of the disk.
Errors cause by software are generally much more difficult for off-the-shelf
data recovery software to correct. This task may require the services of a
data recovery specialist.

Hard Drive Electronics Failures

When a hard drive physically fails, sometimes the mechanical parts of the
hard drive remain undamaged. This can happen, for example, if the hard
drive is subject to a power surge or a discharge of static electricity.
In these cases, it is usually possible to take the mechanical parts out of the
hard drive assembly and place them into another identical hard drive unit.
This should be done in a clean-room environment, to prevent dust from
damaging the hard drive.

Hard Drive Arm Failures

Hard drive arm failures are very common. When the hard drive arm fails,
there is a very good chance that it will damage the hard drive platters.
When you hear the clicking noises from your hard drive which signal a hard
drive arm failure, back up all necessary data immediately and power the
system down as soon as possible.
If the hard drive platters have not been damaged, a data recovery specialist
may still be able to recover data from a hard drive with a damaged hard
drive arm.

Hard Drive Platter Failures

No drive platter is manufactured perfectly. There will always be some bad

spots on the platter surface. Modern hard drives automatically mark those
bad spots as unusable and do not store data there.
Sometimes bad spots will develop during the life of the hard drive. The hard
drive will mark that spot bad and attempt to move the data to a good spot
on the hard drive. This may, or may not, result in the loss of some data.

27
Serious hard drive platter failures can occur as a result of hard drive arm
failures. In these cases, the hard drive platters are being scratched. Your
data is being scratched right off the surface of the platters! You can often
hear this damage occuring. These failures are very expensive or impossible
to recover.

The Solution to Hard Drive Recovery: Backup

The best method of hard drive recovery is to throw away the failed hard
drive and restore your data from backup to a brand new drive.
Backing up your data is a critically important preventative maintenance
task. Don't put yourself at risk by not properly backing up your data.

What is free data recovery software?

Never install free data recovery software on the drive that you are
attempting to recover data from.
Always install and run free data recovery software from a separate drive,
such as an external hard disk or flash drive.

Free Data Recovery Software

PC Inspector File Recovery

PC Inspector File Recovery is a data recovery program that supports the FAT
12/16/32 and NTFS file systems.

• Finds partitions automatically, even if the boot sector or FAT has

been erased or damaged
• Recovers files with the original time and date stamp
• Supports the saving of recovered files on network drives
• Recovers file contents, even when the file header is no longer
available.

PC Inspector Smart Recovery

PC Inspector Smart Recovery is a data recovery program for Flash Card,
Smart Media, Sony Memory Stick, IBM Micro Drive, Multimedia Card, Secure
Digital Card or any other data carrier for digital cameras.
If you have unintentionally deleted or formatted pictures, videos or sound
files on your data carrier or have pulled it out during a write operation, no
matter - PC Inspector Smart Recovery can easily, quickly and absolutely
reliably reconstruct the lost data.
PC Inspector Smart Recovery runs on Windows 95/98, ME, NT 4.0, XP and
Windows 2000 systems.

28
FreeUndelete
FreeUndelete is a freeware data recovery program for deleted files.
In case of accidental deletion of files on a NTFS file system (used by default
in Windows XP, 2000 and NT) FreeUndelete is the utility to help.
A deleted file is essentially an area on disk designated as free and ready to
accept data (such as contents of some other file). Luckily, unless the area
has already been overwritten, it still holds the contents of the deleted file.
Due to this fact it is possible to undelete files.
It is our pleasure to emphasize that FreeUndelete is free. There is no
charge, direct or hidden, to download and use a fully functional copy of the
program. The program does not install any spyware or adware along with it.
It does not populate user's desktop with pop-up ads or forcefully subscribe
user to mailing lists.

Unstoppable Copier
Unstoppable Copier recovers files from disks with physical damage. The
program allows you to copy files from disks with problems such as bad
sectors, scratches or that just give errors when reading data. This software
will attempt to recover every readable piece of a file and put the pieces
together. Using this method most types of files can be made useable even if
some parts were not recoverable in the end.

Zero Assumption Digital Image Recovery

Zero Assumption Digital Image Recovery is a freeware data recovery tool,
specifically designed to work with digital images. It allows you to recover
digital photos accidentally deleted from digital camera memory.
There exists a vast variety of digital camera and associated media types on
the market, so it is virtually impossible to test the program with each and
every hardware combination. Generally, program should work with any
media type (e.g. Compact Flash, Memory Stick, SmartMedia and so on)
accessible by means of operating system. You need the use your camera or
the appropriate card reader you normally use to transfer images from
camera to PC.

Disk Investigator
Disk Investigator helps you to discover all that is hidden on your computer
hard disk. It can also help you to recover lost data.
Display the true drive contents by bypassing the operating system and
directly reading the raw drive sectors. View and search raw directories, files,
clusters, and system sectors. Verify the effectiveness of file and disk wiping
programs. Undelete previously deleted files.

How do I recover hard drive data?

Hard drive data recovery is the process of recovering lost data from a hard
drive when the data cannot be readily accessed through normal retrieval
methods. Whether your hard drive has locked up or has completely crashed

29
there is a good chance the data can be recovered by using a variety of hard
drive data recovering techniques.

Reasons for Hard Drive Crashes

Hard drive crashes occur for a variety of reasons. One of the main causes
for a full blown hard drive crash is generally attributed to a hardware issues.
The hard drive is a magnetic disc which spins and has an extended arm that
collected data from any area of the hard drive. If the arm fails to function or
the motor overheats or stops spinning, then there is a chance your hard
drive will crash rendering data seemingly inaccessible from all hard drive
areas. Hard drive crashes can also be caused by corrupted registry files or
system files. Viruses, Spyware, adware, and Trojan horses can also cause
system file corruption resulting in a hard drive crash.

Determining the Actual Cause of a Hard Drive Crash

To determine whether your hard drive has crashed due to mechanical failure
or a software related problem is relatively simple. Check whether the
flashing light in front of your computer case is blinking or not. If the light is
flashing but the computer is not booting up, then the problem may be
software related; and in most cases the cause is either virus related or due
to a corrupted system file. These types of hard drive crashes can generally
be recovered by reinstalling the operating system.
If the flashing light in the front of the computer case is not blinking, it
indicates that there is no hard drive activity and is generally attributed to a
mechanical problem. In this scenario a qualified computer technician may be
needed to fix problematic hard drive issues.

Physical Damage

Most physical damage to a hard drive, such as failed motors or head

crashes, cannot be repaired by typical computer users. Physical damage of a
hard drive often results in some data loss and in most cases you may not be
able to recover all the lost data. However, the physical damage can also
result in the damage of the logical structures of the file system which
prevents file system structures from being completely written to the hard
drive.
If the hard drive has any physical damage, you need to seek a technical
expert to assist in recovery or choose a data recovery company to recover
as much data as possible. Most hard drive data recovery firms utilize the
latest tools like magnetometers to retrieve the lost bits from the magnetic
media. The recovered raw bits from the damaged hard drive are used to
construct a new disk image, and the logical damage can be repaired.

30
The Role of Hard Drive Data Recovery Software Programs

Hard drive data recovery software programs play a major role in recovering
hard drive data. You will find several companies that offer these types of
programs. Most will automatically create backup copies of all your files and
folders reducing the worry of potential data loss. A good hard drive data
recovery program can recover all the important files or folders which vanish
after partition loss, accidental format, file or directory deletion, software
malfunction or even a virus attack. Whether you accidentally delete the files
or your computer crashes, data recovery software can locate the lost files
and recover them from your hard drive.
The main contexts where hard drive data recovery software is found useful
include:

1. Missing file or directory

2. Formatted hard drive
3. Deleted file or directory
4. Unbootable hard drive
5. Inaccessible hard drive
6. Recovery of deleted files and folders on FAT and NTFS hard
drive or partitions
7. Data recovery on damaged FAT and NTFS partitions
8. Damaged or corrupted partition table

The majority of hard drive data recovery software programs currently

available is easy to install, user friendly, and is virtually self maintaining.
However, it's a good idea to purchase these programs from a trusted
software supplier.
Most software companies understand the consumer's need to be assured of
value and ease of use, so if the data recovery software you selected has a
trail offer, it may be a good idea to give it a test drive before you make a
purchase.

What is a full backup?

A full backup is a backup of every file on a file system, whether that file has
changed or not.
The alternatives to a full backup are incremental backup and differential
backup.
A full backup takes longer to accomplish and requires the most storage
space on the backup media, but it also provides the quickest restore times.
A full backup should be performed weekly or monthly on production
systems, along with daily differential backups.
A full backup should also be performed before any major planned changes
to a system.

31
What is an incremental backup?
A incremental backup is a backup of every file on a filesystem which has
changed since the last backup.
The alternatives to an incremental backup are differential backup and full
backup.
An incremental backup is the fastest backup and requires the least storage
space on the backup media. However, incremental backups also require the
longest time and the most tapes to restore.
Incremental backups should be used only in environments where backup
time or backup storage media are extremely constrained. For most
environments, a weekly full backup and a daily differential backip represent
a better plan.
If you perform a full backup on Sunday along with incremental backups
every night and the system crashes on Thursday, you will need to restore
the full backup from Sunday along with the incremental backups from
Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.
In contrast, if you perform a full backup on Sunday and a differential every
night, when the system crashes on Thursday you will only need to restore
the full backup from Sunday and the differential backup from Wednesday.

What is a differential backup?

A differential backup is a backup of every file on a file system which has
changed since the last full backup.
The alternatives to a differential backup are incremental backup and full
backup.
A differential backup can be an optimal middle-ground between a full
backup and an incremental backup.
A differential backup is not as fast as an incremental backup, but it is faster
than a full backup. A differential backup requires more storage space than
an incremental backup, but less than a full backup.
A differential backup requires more time to restore than a full backup, but
not as much time to restore as an incremental backup.
If you perform a full backup on Sunday and a differential every night, and
the system crashes on Thursday, you will only need to restore the full
backup from Sunday and the differential backup from Wednesday.
In contrast, if you perform a full backup on Sunday and incremental backups
every night, when the system crashes on Thursday, you will need to restore
the full backup from Sunday along with the incremental backups from
Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.
A differential backup should be performed daily on production systems.

32
What is network backup?
Network backup is any backup system where the data to be backed up
traverses the network to reach the backup media.
Network backup typically requires a client-server software architecture. The
backup server resides on a centralized server and the backup clients reside
on every system to be backed up.
Advanced network backup systems can manage backup media which are
also connected to the backup server via a network.
Network backup systems are much more scalable and manageable than
local backup systems where tape drives are attached to each comouter
ystem.
Because network backup systems can backup so many computers, they
normally utilize tape autochangers to give them greater storage capacity.

Network Backup Software

Free network backup software includes Amanda, Bacula, and BackupPC.

Commercial network backup software includes HP OpenView Storage Data
Protector, Veritas NetBackup, and EMC Legato Networker.

What are common computer backup methods?

It is a well-known fact that most computers are susceptible to hard drive
crashes or virus attacks. Backing up information is a practical and necessary
precaution to protect one's data from being lost forever.
There are several realistic methods for backing up data. The best backup
method for your data depends opon many factors, including: the importance
of the data, the amount of data to be backed up, and the funds available for
backup. Here are some of the most commonly used data backup solutions.

Flash Memory

Flash memory, also known as memory sticks, flash drives, or thumb drives,
are a suitable solution for data backup when the backup amount is
somewhat small. Flash memory drives are easy to plug into any PC with a
USB port. These drives offer unlimited rewrite capabilities and are available
in capacities ranging anywhere from 64 MB to 4 GB. Flash memory data
durability is estimated to be roughly 10 years. Another advantage of flash
memory is that data stored on flash drives is not susceptible to damage
caused by magnets.

33
DVD Backup

DVD backup is a practical alternative for home users and small businesses.
DVD technologies include DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RAM,
as well as dual layer DVD technologies. Single-layer DVDs can hold up to 4.7
GB of data and dual-layer DVDs can hold up to 8.5 GB. DVD technology is a
suitable option for storing backup data medium amounts of backup data.

Hard Drives

As the prices of hard drives are dropping each year, individuals and
businesses are turning to hard drives as a backup option. Copying and
retrieving data from separate hard drives is very easy. The primary
disadvantages are cost and the worry that a malware attack which affects
the primary hard drives could also effect the backup hard drives.

Tape Backup

Combined with their decreased accessibility and the advances made in the
availability of such storage devices as the CD-R, the CD-RW, and the DVD-
R, tape backups have become less popular and practically obsolete for home
computer users. However, tape backup is still the primary backup method
used in business environments. Tape backups are available in numerous
capacities such as 4mm helical for low-end systems, 8mm helical scan
technology for mid-range systems, and AIT, DLT and LTO for high-end
systems. Compared to several other media solutions, tape drives typically
provide the highest storage capacities at the lowest cost. One drawback to
keep in mind, however, is the write speed of these drives, which is
comparatively low.

Online Storage

Online storage is one of the newest methods of storing your files, of course
backup data also. Onlien storage solutions enable people to upload their
data to a reliable server located in a secure environment. Another
advantage of storing files online is that users can access these files from any
location as long as they have a computer with Internet access.

What is DLT?

34
DLT (Digital Linear Tape) is a magnetic tape format developed by DEC (now
Hewlett-Packard).
DLT tapes are 1/2 inch wide and are packaged in study plastic containers.
DLT tapes store between 10GB and 40GB of uncompressed data.
A SuperDLT II tape can store up to 300GB of uncompressed data and can
transfer as much as 36MB per second.

DLT Alternatives

Alternative tape storage standards to DLT include LTO and AIT.

What is LTO tape?

LTO (Linear Tape-Open) is a tape standard developed by HP, IBM, and
Seagate as a competitor to DLT.
LTO tape stores data in 384 data tracks which are divided into four data
bands of 96 tracks each.
The four data bands are bordered by bands of servo information which are
written during tape manufacture.
Data bands are filled one-at-a-time, in a linear fashion.
LTO tapes contain 4KB of non-volatile memory which can be read through a
non-contacting passive RF interface. This storage space contains data about
the tape and can be read without the time required to read the magnetic
tape itself.

LTO Tape Generations

The LTO tape standard is designed to last for four generations of magnetic
tape technology.
LTO Tape Generation Uncompressed Capacity
Generation 1 100GB
Generation 2 200GB
Generation 3 400GB

35
Generation 4 800GB

LTO Tape Physical Specifications

An LTO tape is approximately 4.1" x 4.0" x 0.8".

LTO Alternatives

Alternative tape storage standards to LTO include DLT and AIT.

Find a Great Deal on LTO Equipment on eBay

What is AIT?
AIT (Advanced Intelligent Tape) is a magnetic tape format developed by
Sony.
AIT tapes contain non-volatile memory called Memory-in-Cassette (MIC).
This storage space contains data about the tape which can be read quickly
by a tape drive, without having to read data from the slower magnetic
media.

AIT Magnetic Media

AIT uses Advanced Metal Evaporated (AME) tape. To create AME tape,
cobalt is vaporized and deposited directly on the base film.
AME technology gives AIT tape both high-capacity and exceptional
durability. An AIT tape should support 30,000 media uses with an MTBF of
400,000 hours.

AIT Tape Capacities

AIT Tape Specification Storage Capacity

SDX125C 25GB
SDX135C 35GB
TAITE-20N 20GB
TAIT1-40N/40C 40GB

36
SDX236C 36GB
SDX2-50C 50GB
SDX2-50W 50GB
SDX3-100C 100GB
SDX3-100W 100GB
SDX4-200C 200GB
SDX4-200W 200GB

AIT Physical Specifications

AIT tapes are 95mm x 62.5mm x 15.0mm. This compact format is very
convenient for use in 3.5" drive bays.

AIT Alternatives

Alternative tape storage standards to AIT include DLT and LTO.

What is Online Data Storage?

Online data storage, also known as Internet data storage, is a technology
which allows people to store their data in the Internet. With broadband
speeds becoming faster and bandwidth pricing dropping every year, more
people are interested in purchasing online data storage. Online data storage
not only provides an additional flexible source for storing data but also acts
as a backup mechanism and provides an effective method of sharing data
with others.
This is the reason why Internet data storage is increasingly popular even as
the costs of physical local storage devices - such as hard drives, CD-R, and
tape backups - are coming down by the day. Another advantage of online
data storage is that it is easy to expand. Whenever you reach the maximum
capacity limit, you can simply purchase additional space for storage. There
is no need for you to purchase and install additional storage hardware.
With online data storage, the user can access data from any location with a
computer and Internet connection. This s convenient for businesses and
home computer users alike. Businesses that use online data storage can
password protect access to business files, while home computer users can

37
use it for something as simple as sharing photos, music, or videos with their
family members.
Another noted advantage of online data storage is data backup. Computers
are susceptible to hard drive crashes or virus attacks. Hence taking data
backups frequently would be a safe way to protect your data from getting
lost forever. However, it should be kept in mind that backup data must be
stored in some other place other than the same computer or the same
physical location. To do so, there is no better an option than online data
storage.
There are several types of online data storage. If the user is looking for
storage space for some non-sensitive data, then the basic online storage is
an ideal one. On the other hand, for sensitive data, additional security may
be required - such as data encryption or two-factor authentication. In such
cases, online vendors typically use strong encryption technologies to keep
user's data safe and secure during transmission over the Internet.
Nowadays there are several vendors offering online data storage facilities.
Users typically pay fees based upon the amount of space they need.
Generally online data storage vendors feature a fully managed and secure
solution with 24x7 technical support and monitoring. Further almost all
Internet data storage services are secure and password protected. Some
vendors provide an additional measure of security by providing users with a
password token, which automatically generates passwords using two factor
authentication.

What is Fibre Channel?

Fibre Channel is a set of standards for connecting storage devices in a fabric
network.
Fibre Channel supports data transmission rates of 100MBps. Fibre Channel
supports the connection of 126 devices on a single network.

Fibre Channel Topologies

Fibre Channel supports three fabric topologies:

• Fabric
• Loop
• Point-to-Point

Fiber Channel Physical Connectivity

Fiber Channel supports connectivity over fiber optic cabling or copper wiring.
Fibre Channel devices using fiber optic cabling use two unidirectional fiber
optic cables for each connection. One fiber optic cable is used for
transmitting, the other for receiving. Fibre channel over fiber optic cable
supports cable distances of up to 10Km.

38
Fibre Channel devices which communicate over copper cabling are limited to
distances of 30m.

Fibre Channel Devices

Fibre Channel Devices include:

• Host Bust Adapters (HBA's)

• Fibre Channel Hubs
• Fibre Channel Switches

Fibre Channel Ports

Fibre Channel uses a shorthand terminology to describe different types of

connections to the fibre channel network.
Fibre Channel uses the term "ports" and defines seven different types of
ports:
Short Descriptive Device
Port Function
Name Name Type
Node port used to connect a node to a
N-port Network Port Nodes
Fibre Channel switch
Switch port used to connect the Fibre
F-port Fabric Port Switches
Channel fabric to a node
Node port used to connect a node to a
L-port Loop Port Nodes
Fibre Channel loop
Network + Loop Node port which connects to both
NL-port Nodes
Port loops and switches
Fabric + Loop Switch port which connects to both
FL-port Switches
Port loops and switches
Used to cascade fibre channel switches
E-port Extender Port Switches
together
General purpose port which can be
G-port General Port Switches
configured to emulate other port types

What is Network Attached Storage?

Network Attached Storage (NAS) is a term used to describe a complete
storage system which is designed to be attached to a traditional data
network.
This differentiates Network Attached Storage devices from SAN's (Storage
Area Networks). A SAN is a separate network to which storage devices are
attached.

39
In most cases, Network Attached Storage is less expensive to purchase and
less complex to operate than a Storage Area Network. However, a SAN can
provide better performance and a larger range of configuration options.

Network Attached Storage Protocols

NAS servers commonly support NFS (Network File System) and CIFS
(Common Internet File System). They may also support other storage
protocols, such as FTP (File Transfer Protocol) or SCP (Secure CoPy).

Network Atttached Storage Connections

NAS server are typically attached to the network via Ethernet. However,
NAS devices are also available which connect to Fibre Channel networks.
Wireless 802.11 Network Attached Storage devices are now appearing on
the market.

Network Attached Storage Drives

NAS devices have traditionally utilized SCSI (Small Computer Systems

Interface) internally, but NAS devices can be built using any disk
technology. NAS devices based on ATA disks are now available.
In addition to disk storage, NAS devices can also support magnetic tape and
optical media such as CD and DVD.

What is a HBA?
A HBA, or Host Bus Adapter, is the interface card which connects a host to a
SAN (Storage Area Network).
A HBA could be more accurately referred to as a "Host I/O controller".

What is LUN masking?

40
LUN (Logical Unit Number) Masking is an authorization process that makes a
LUN available to some hosts and unavailable to other hosts.
LUN Masking is implemented primarily at the HBA (Host Bus Adapater) level.
LUN Masking implemented at this level is vulnerable to any attack that
compromises the HBA.
Some storage controllers also support LUN Masking.
LUN Masking is important because Windows based servers attempt to write
volume labels to all available LUN's. This can render the LUN's unusable by
other operating systems and can result in data loss.

What is SAN zoning?

SAN zoning is a method of arranging Fibre Channel devices into logical
groups over the physical configuration of the fabric.
SAN zoning may be utilized to implement compartmentalization of data for
security purposes.
Each device in a SAN may be placed into multiple zones.

What are hard and soft zoning?

Hard zoning is zoning which is implemented in hardware. Soft zoning is
zoning which is implemented in software.
Hard zoning physically blocks access to a zone from any device outside of
the zone.
Soft zoning uses filtering implemented in fibre channel switches to prevent
ports from being seen from outside of their assigned zones. The security
vulnerability in soft zoning is that the ports are still accessible if the user in
another zone correctly guesses the fibre channel address.

What is port zoning?

Port zoning utilizes physical ports to define security zones. A users access to
data is determined by what physical port he or she is connected to.
With port zoning, zone information must be updated every time a user
changes switch ports. In addition, port zoning does not allow zones to
overlap.
Port zoning is normally implemented using hard zoning, but could also be
implemented using soft zoning.

What is the OSI model?

41
The OSI model is a reference model which most IT professionals use to
describe networks and network applications.
The OSI model was originally intended to describe a complete set of
production network protocols, but the cost and complexity of the
government processes involved in defining the OSI network made the
project unviable. In the time that the OSI designers spent arguing over who
would be responsible for what, TCP/IP conquered the world.

The Seven Layers of the OSI Model

The seven layers of the OSI model are:

Layer Name
7 Application
6 Presentation
5 Session
4 Transport
3 Network
2 Data Link
1 Physical
The easiest way to remember the layers of the OSI model is to use the
handy mnemonic "All People Seem To Need Data Processing":
Layer Name
Mnemonic
7 Application All
6 Presentation People
5 Session Seem
4 Transport To
3 Network Need
2 Data Link Data
1 Physical Processing
The functions of the seven layers of the OSI model are:

Layer Seven of the OSI Model

The Application Layer of the OSI model is responsible for

providing end-user services, such as file transfers, electronic
messaging, e-mail, virtual terminal access, and network
management. This is the layer with which the user interacts.

Layer Six of the OSI Model

42
 The Presentation Layer of the OSI model is responsible for
defining the syntax which two network hosts use to
communicate. Encryption and compression should be
Presentation Layer functions.

Layer Five of the OSI Model

The Session Layer of the OSI model is responsible for

establishing process-to-process commnunications between
networked hosts.

Layer Four of the OSI Model

The Transport Layer of the OSI model is responsible for

delivering messages between networked hosts. The Transport
Layer should be responsible for fragmentation and reassembly.

Layer Three of the OSI Model

The Network Layer of the OSI model is responsible for

establishing paths for data transfer through the network.
Routers operate at the Network Layer.

Layer Two of the OSI Model

The Data Link Layer of the OSI model is responsible for

communications between adjacent network nodes. Hubs and
switches operate at the Data Link Layer.

Layer One of the OSI Model

The Physical Layer of the OSI model is responsible for bit-level

transmission between network nodes. The Physical Layer
defines items such as: connector types, cable types, voltages,
and pin-outs.

The OSI Model vs. The Real World

The most major difficulty with the OSI model is that is does not map well to
the real world!
The OSI was created after many of todays protocols were already in
production use. These existing protocols, such as TCP/IP, were designed and
built around the needs of real users with real problems to solve. The OSI
model was created by academicians for academic purposes.
The OSI model is a very poor standard, but it's the only well-recognized
standard we have which describes networked applications.

43
The easiest way to deal with the OSI model is to map the real-world
protocols to the model, as well as they can be mapped.
Layer Name
Common Protocols
7 Application SSH, telnet, FTP
6 Presentation HTTP, SMTP, SNMP
5 Session RPC, Named Pipes, NETBIOS
4 Transport TCP, UDP
3 Network IP
2 Data Link Ethernet
1 Physical Cat-5
The difficulty with this approach is that there is no general agreement as to
which layer of the OSI model to map any specific protocol. You could argue
forever about what OSI model layer SSH maps to.
A much more accurate model of real-world networking is the TCP/IP model:
TCP/IP Model
Application Layer
Transport Layer
Internet Layer
Network Interface Layer
The most significant downside with the TCP/IP model is that if you reference
it, fewer people will know what you are talking about!
For a better description of why the OSI model should go the way of the
dodo, disco, and DivX, read Kill the Beast: Why the Seven-Layer Model Must
Die.

What is plenum cable?

The plenum is hidden space within a building which is used for HVAC
(Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning) and to run cables.
Plenum space is normally above a suspended ceiling or under a raised floor.
Buildings without plenum spaces will have cabling and HVAC ducts within
plain view.
Plenum cable is cable which is rated to be run through plenum spaces.
Plenum cable must meet two requirements to meet most fire codes:

• Plenum cable must not burn easily

• Plenum cable must not emit toxic fumes when exposed to
extreme heat

44
Because of these requirements, plenum cable is usually more expensive
than non-plenum cable. Plenum cable is also more stiff and difficult to work
with than regular network cable.
Most plenum cable is covered with Teflon or PVC.

How do I change a MAC address?

Every Ethernet card has a MAC address burned-in at the factory. At times,
you may want to change this MAC address to one of your own choosing.
The procedures to change a MAC address are specific to each operating
system.

How to change a MAC address under Microsoft Windows

Under Windows, the MAC address is stored in a registry key. To change a

MAC address, find that key with `regedit` and change it. Of course,
Microsoft keeps moving the location of the key around!
Windows XP adds an option to change the MAC address on some network
cards under the Advanced tab in the network adapter's Properties menu.
A much easier and more reliable method to change a MAC address under
Windows is to use a software utility program designed to do this for you.
Macshift is a free utility that you can use to spoof your MAC address under
Microsoft Windows.

How to change a MAC address under MacOS

Instructions for changing the MAC address on a Macintosh can be found at

MAC Spoofing on the Macintosh.

How to change a MAC address under FreeBSD

In FreeBSD, you can change your MAC address with the `ifconfig
<interface> link <address>` command.

How to change a MAC address under Linux

Under Linux, you can change your MAC address with `ifconfig <interface>
hw <class> <address>`, or you can use the GNU MAC Changer.

How to change a MAC address under Solaris

In Solaris, you can change the MAC address with the `ifconfig <interface>
<ether> <address>` command.

45
How to change a MAC address under OpenBSD

OpenBSD does not, by default, allow you to change the MAC address. It is
possible to change the MAC address under OpenBSD with sea.c.

How to change a MAC address under HP-UX

Under HP-UX, you can change the MAC address in SAM by selecting
Networking and Communications, then selecting the interface, then Action,
Modify, Advanced Options. HP-UX refers to the MAC address as the "station
address".

What is VoIP?
VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) is simply the transmission of voice traffic
over IP-based networks.
The Internet Protocol (IP) was originally designed for data networking. The
success of IP in becoming a world standard for data networking has led to
its adaption to voice networking.

The Economics of VoIP

VoIP has become popular largely because of the cost advantages to

consumers over traditional telepone networks. Most Americans pay a flat
monthly fee for local telephone calls and a per-minute charge for long-
distance calls.
VoIP calls can be placed across the Internet. Most Internet connections are
charged using a flat monthly fee structure.
Using the Internet connection for both data traffic and voice calls can allow
consumers to get rid of one monthly payment. In addition, VoIP plans do
not charge a per-minute fee for long distance.
For International calling, the monetary savings to the consumer from
switching to VoIP technology can be enormous.

VoIP Telephones

There are three methods of connecting to a VoIP network:

• Using a VoIP telephone

• Using a "normal" telephone with a VoIP adapter
• Using a computer with speakers and a microphone

46
Types of VoIP Calls

VoIP telephone calls can be placed either to other VoIP devices, or to normal
telephones on the PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network).
Calls from a VoIP device to a PSTN device are commonly called "PC-to-
Phone" calls, even though the VoIP device may not be a PC.
Calls from a VoIP device to another VoIP device are commonly called "PC-
to-PC" calls, even though neither device may be a PC

Changing a MAC Address in Hardware

Speed Demon Adapters sells network cards which give you the ability to
change the MAC address stored in their EERPROM.
This can give you the ability to change your MAC address under any
operating system that supports either the PCI bus or PCMCIA Type II cards.

What is 127.0.0.1?
127.0.0.1 is the standard IP address used for a loopback network
connection.
This means that if you try to connect to 127.0.0.1, you are immediately
looped back to your own machine.
If you telnet, ftp, etc... to 127.0.0.1, you are connected to your own
machine.
In other words, 127.0.0.1 is you.
For example, if your system was named "joker", and you attempted to
telnet to 127.0.0.1, you would see:
# telnet 127.0.0.1
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to joker
Escape character is '^]'.
Convincing newbie's to connect to 127.0.0.1 is a frequent joke on the
Internet.
Another name for 127.0.0.1 is localhost.
Although 127.0.0.1 is the most commonly utilized address for localhost, any
IP address in the 127.*.*.* range should also function in the same manner.

What is a firewall?
A firewall is a system that is set up to control traffic flow between two
networks. Firewalls are most commonly specially configured Unix systems,
but firewalls have also been built out of many other systems, including
systems designed specifically for use as firewalls. The most common
commercial firewall today is CheckPoint FireWall-1, but competitors such as
Cisco's PIX are quickly catching up on CheckPoint.

47
Many people disagree on the definition of a firewall, and in this discussion I
will use the term loosely.

The Packet Filtering Firewall

One type of firewall is the packet filtering firewall. In a packet filtering

firewall, the firewall examines five characteristics of a packet:

• Source IP address
• Source port
• Destination IP address
• Destination port
• IP protocol (TCP or UDP)

Based upon rules configured into the firewall, the packet will either be
allowed through, rejected, or dropped. If the firewall rejects the packet, it
sends a message back to the sender letting him know that the packet was
rejected. If the packet was dropped, the firewall simply does not respond to
the packet. The sender must wait for the communications to time out.
Dropping packets instead of rejecting them greatly increases the time
required to scan your network. Packet filtering firewalls operate on Layer 3
of the OSI model, the Network Layer. Routers are a very common form of
packet filtering firewall.
An improved form of the packet filtering firewall is a packet filtering firewall
with a stateful inspection engine. With this enhancement, the firewall
"remembers" conversations between systems. It is then necessary to fully
examine only the first packet of a conversation.

The Application-Proxy Firewall

Another type of firewall is the application-proxy firewall. In a proxying

firewall, every packet is stopped at the firewall. The packet is then examined
and compared to the rules configured into the firewall. If the packet passes
the examinations, it is re-created and sent out. Because each packet is
destroyed and re-created, there is a potential that an application-proxy
firewall can prevent unknown attacks based upon weaknesses in the TCP/IP
protocol suite that would not be prevented by a packet filtering firewall. The
drawback is that a separate application-proxy must be written for each
application type being proxied. You need an HTTP proxy for web traffic, an
FTP proxy for file transfers, a Gopher proxy for Gopher traffic, etc...
Application-proxy firewalls operate on Layer 7 of the OSI model, the
Application Layer.

The Application-Gateway Firewall

48
Application-gateway firewalls also operate on Layer 7 of the OSI model.
Application-gateway firewalls exist for only a few network applications. A
typical application-gateway firewall is a system where you must telnet to
one system in order telnet again to a system outside of the network.

The SOCKS Firewall

Another type of application-proxy firewall are SOCKS firewalls. Where

normal application-proxy firewalls do not require modifications to network
clients, SOCKS firewalls requires specially modified network clients. This
means you have to modify every system on your internal network which
needs to communicate with the external network. On a Windows or OS/2
system, this can be as easy as swapping a few DLL's.

What are the types of wireless networks?

Wireless data networks exist in such number and variety as to be difficult to
categorize and compare.
Some wireless data networks run over wireless voice networks, such as
mobile telephone networks. CPDP, HSCSD, PDC-P, and GPRS are examples.
Other wireless networks run on their own physical layer networks, utilizing
anything from antennas built into handlheld devices to large antennas
mounted on towers. 802.11, LMDS, and MMDS are examples. A few wireless
networks are intended only to connect small devices over short distances.
Bluetooth is an example.
Wireless networks which run over other wireless networks often utilize the
lower layer networks to provide security and encryption. Stand-alone
wireless networks either provide their own security and encryption features
or rely upon VPN's (Virtual Private Networks) to provide those features. In
many cases, multiple layers of security and encryption may be desirable.
Some wireless networks are fixed, meaning that antennas do not move
frequently. Other wireless networks are mobile, meaning that the antenna
can move constantly. This is sometimes a feature of the specific
implementation and antenna design, instead of an inherent limitation of the
wireless network specification.
Wireless networks may operate on licensed or unlicensed portions of the
frequency spectrum.

Common Wireless Network Types

49
Major types of wireless networks include:
CDPD Cellular Digital Packet Data
HSCSD High Speed Circuit Switched Data
PDC-P Packet Data Cellular
GPRS General Packet Radio Service
1xRTT 1x Radio Transmission Technology
Bluetooth
IrDA
MMDS Multichannel Multipoint Distribution Service
LMDS Local Multipoint Distribution Service
WiMAX Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access
802.11 Wi-Fi

50