Maxtor 80-160GB Manuel D’Utilisation

 

Glossary

 

G-6

Maxtor DiamondMax 17 80-160GB AT Hard Disk Drive

 

 – The center shaft of the disk upon which the 

drive’s platters are mounted.

 

 – A type of coating process used to apply the 

magnetic coating to some high-performance disks. In 
sputtering, the disks are placed in a vacuum chamber and the 
coating is vaporized and deposited on the disks. The resulting 
surface is hard, smooth, and capable of storing data at high 
density. Maxtor disk drives use sputtered thin film disks.

 

 A type of motor that moves in discrete 

amounts for each input electrical pulse. Stepper motors used 
to be widely used for read/write head positioner, since they 
can be geared to move the head one track per step. Stepper 
motors are not as fast or reliable as the rotary voice coil 
actuators which Maxtor disk drives use.

 

 – The material the disk platter is made of 

beneath the magnetic coating. Hard disks are generally made 
of aluminum or magnesium alloy (or glass, for optical disks) 
while the substrate of floppies is usually mylar.

 – The top or bottom side of the platter which 

is coated with the magnetic material for recording data. On 
some drives one surface may be reserved for positioning 
information.

 – A type of coating, used for disk surfaces. 

Thin film surfaces allow more bits to be stored per disk.

 – Acronym for tracks per inch. The number of tracks or 

cylinders that are written in each inch of travel across the 
surface of a disk.

 – One of the many concentric magnetic circle 

patterns written on a disk surface as a guide to where to store 
and read the data. 

 – How closely the tracks are packed 

on a disk surface. The number is specified as tracks per 
inch (TPI).

 – The time required 

for the read/write heads to move to an adjacent track.

 – The rate at which the disk sends 

and receives data from the controller. Drive specifications 
usually reference a high number that is the burst mode rate 
for transferring data across the interface from the disk buffer 
to system RAM. Sustained data transfer is at a much lower 
rate because of system processing overhead, head switches, 
and seeks.

 – The total number of 

bytes of data that could be fit onto a disk. Formatting the 
disk requires some of this space to record location, boundary 
definitions, and timing information. After formatting, user 
data can be stored on the remaining disk space, known as 
formatted capacity. The size of a Maxtor drive is expressed 
in formatted capacity.

 – A type of motor used to move the disk 

read/write head in and out to the right track. Voice-coil 
actuators work like loudspeakers with the force of a 
magnetic coil causing a proportionate movement of the 
head. Maxtor's actuator uses voice-coil technology, and 
thereby eliminates the high stress wearing parts found on 
stepper motor type actuators.

 – The position on every track that 

contains data used by the closed loop positioning control. 
This information is used to fine tune the position of the 
read/write heads exactly over the track center.

 – Hard disks that use a 

technology similar to an IBM model using Winchester as the 
code name. These disks use read/write heads that ride just 
above the magnetic surface, held up by the air flow created 
by the turning disk. When the disk stops turning, the heads 
land on the surface, which has a specially lubricated coating. 
Winchester disks must be sealed and have a filtration system 
since ordinary dust particles are large enough to catch 
between the head and the disk. 

 – In the context of optical disks, 

technologies that allow the drive to store data on a disk and 
read it back, but not to erase it.