2.5.1 Explain how data is organised on a hard drive.

A hard disk (it gets its name because it needed to be distinguished from the "soft" floppy drives of yesteryear) stores data in sectors and tracks on the polished surface of a magnetic platter.
Tracks are concentric circles of data that extend out from the center of the disk. Sectors are organized wedges of the circular surfaces that are shaped like pie slices.

Each sector on the platter can hold a fixed number of bytes per track, such as 256 or 512. Before the drive can hold bytes, it undergoes a process called low-level formatting so that tracks and sectors can be designated on the platter. A process known as high-level formatting then builds file-storage structures into the designated sectors. When these two processes are complete, the drive has the ability to hold files.

2.5.2 Describe the ATA interface standards defing how hard drives interface with a computer system.?

A hard disk can be calculated out as hard drives are still related to the computer with the help of USB cable and many other ways. Now in the market that can be found that there area lot of things existing modern computing standards such as SATA, Ide, SCSI.

ATA: Known also as IDE, supports one or two hard drives, a 16-bit interface and PIO modes 0, 1 and 2.
ATA-2: Supports faster PIO modes (3 and 4) and multiword DMA modes (1 and 2). Also supports logical block addressing (LBA) and block transfers. ATA-2 is marketed as Fast ATA and Enhanced IDE (EIDE). ATA-3: Minor revision to ATA-2.

Ultra-ATA: Also called Ultra-DMA, ATA33, and DMA-33, supports multiword DMA mode 3 running at 33 MBps. ATA/66: A version of ATA proposed by Quantum Corporation, and supported by Intel, that doubles ATA's throughput to 66 MBps. ATA/100: An updated version of ATA/66 that increases data transfer rates to 100 MBps

2.5.3 Describe SCSI Technology

Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) is a set of standards for physically connecting and transferring data between computers and peripheral devices. It's a standardized way of connecting hardware peripherals to a computer using standardized hardware and control commands. The standard can be divided into SCSI-1 (standard SCSI) and SCSI-2 (SCSI fast, SCSI wide and SCSI wide and fast). The SCSI standards define commands, protocols, and electrical and optical interfaces.

Function - It hides the complexity of physical format.

- Up to 8 or 16 devices can be attached to a single bus.

- SCSI-1, SCSI-2 have the option of parity error checking.

Example : -HP (Compaq), IBM, LSI Logic, Maxtor, and Seagate founded the Serial Attached SCSI Working Group in 2001.

2.5.4 Describe how hard drives can work together in RAID array.

RAID arrays usually consist of two or more hard drives that work together. The whole array is seen by the operating system as a single hard drive. Depending on the type of RAID, such arrays offer different kinds of advantages:

RAID 0 - greatly improves performance by distributing data chunks between two (or more) hard drives. This RAID level uses the combined bandwidth of all hard drives in the array, which makes read and write operations much quicker. On the other hand, saving files as small chunks distributed between several hard drives is somewhat dangerous: if one of the hard drives gets damaged and becomes inoperable, data from the whole RAID-0 array will be lost.

RAID 1 - improves reliability by saving the same data to all hard drives of the array. This RAID level provides great reliability at the cost of additional hard drives. Read errors are not fatal here. Information is safe as long as at least one of the hard drives in the array remains functioning. RAID-1 also can show increased read performance with an operating system that supports split seeks.

Type and Size

It is clear that a corrupted RAID array is not the same as a single hard drive. To restore a RAID array, one should detect its type, size of chunks (stripes), order of drives in the array etc. If these parameters are not properly detected, recovery of the RAID array is not possible, or even dangerous.

RAID Recovery is a clever utility that can detect all necessary parameters automatically. On the other hand, a fully manual recovery is also possible. RAID Recovery recognizes all kinds of RAID controllers, including hardware, native, or software ones. The program properly works with different types of RAID arrays: RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 0+1, JBOD.

2.5.5 Explain the various levels of RAID.

In a RAID 0 system data are split up in blocks that get written across all the drives in the array. By using multiple disks (at least 2) at the same time, this offers superior I/O performance. This performance can be enhanced further by using multiple controllers, ideally one controller per disk. Advantages RAID 0 offers great performance, both in read and write operations. There is no overhead caused by parity controls. All storage capacity is used, there is no disk overhead. The technology is easy to implement.

Disadvantages RAID 0 is not fault-tolerant. If one disk fails, all data in the RAID 0 array are lost. It should not be used on mission-critical systems.

RAID 0 is ideal for non-critical storage of data that have to be read/written at a high speed, such as on a Photoshop image retouching station.

RAID level 1 Mirroring Data are stored twice by writing them to both the data disk (or set of data disks) and a mirror disk (or set of disks) . If a disk fails, the controller uses either the data drive or the mirror drive for data recovery and continues operation. You need at least 2 disks for a RAID 1 array.

RAID 1 systems are often combined with RAID 0 to improve performance. Such a system is sometimes referred to by the combined number: a RAID 10 system.

RAID level 1 Mirroring

Data are stored twice by writing them to both the data disk (or set of data disks) and a mirror disk (or set of disks) . If a disk fails, the controller uses either the data drive or the mirror drive for data recovery and continues operation. You need at least 2 disks for a RAID 1 array.

RAID 1 systems are often combined with RAID 0 to improve performance. Such a system is sometimes referred to by the combined number: a RAID 10 system.

On RAID 3 systems, data blocks are subdivided (striped) and written in parallel on two or more drives. An additional drive stores parity information. You need at least 3 disks for a RAID 3 array. Since parity is used, a RAID 3 stripe set can withstand a single disk failure without losing data or access to data.

RAID level 5

RAID 5 is the most common secure RAID level. It is similar to RAID-3 except that data are transferred to disks by independent read and write operations (not in parallel). The data chunks that are written are also larger. Instead of a dedicated parity disk, parity information is spread across all the drives. You need at least 3 disks for a RAID 5 array. A RAID 5 array can withstand a single disk failure without losing data or access to data. Although RAID 5 can be achieved in software, a hardware controller is recommended. Often extra cache memory is used on these controllers to improve the write performance.

RAID level 10 Combining RAID 0 & RAID 1

RAID 10 combines the advantages (and disadvantages) of RAID 0 and RAID 1 in one single system. It provides security by mirroring all data on a secondary set of disks (disk 3 and 4 in the drawing below) while using striping across each set of disks to speed up data transfers.

2.5.6 Select appropriate hard drive for a particular computer system

Use a fast hard drive

Storing catalogs, image files, and previews on an external drive is convenient if you work with the same catalog on multiple computers. Doing so, however, can negatively affect Lightroom performance. If you must store your files externally, make sure that you have a fast connection. For example, use a FireWire connection, USB 3.0 (not USB 1.0 or 2.0), or eSATA connection.

Make sure that you have a large enough hard drive and enough free space

- Lightroom 2 and 3 require at least 1 GB of free harddisk space, thats the bare minimum. The larger the catalog, the more space you need. The amount varies depending on the size of your catalog and your preview settings. Therefore, theres no rule of thumb other than more is better."

Video cards

- Lightroom requires a video card that can run the monitor at its native resolution. Built-in, default cards that ship with most desktop or laptop systems typically suffice for Lightroom. Be sure to keep the graphics driver software up to date. See Update the graphics driver | Windows XP (kb409115) and Update the graphics driver | Windows 7, Vista (kb409116). On Mac OS, click the Apple menu and choose Software Update.

Run Lightroom in 64-bit mode (Lightroom 3)

- If you run Lightroom in 64-bit mode, it has access to more than 2 GB of RAM, which is the ceiling for 32 bit operating systems. Giving Lightroom access to more than 4 GB of RAM can significantly improve performance. Lightroom operates in 64-bit mode automatically if it is installed on a computer that is 64 bit capable and running a 64-bit OS. You can verify that it's running in 64-bit mode by doing the following:

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