+Failover

An operation where a redundant component (power supply, fan, hard drive) takes over for a failed component.

+Fault Tolerance

A process to decrease the likelihood of losing data in a RAID unit. Redundant components reduce the risk of unit failure by providing failover, while RAID levels reduce the risk of data failure by employing striping, hot spare hard disks and data parity operations to provide data regeneration.

+Fibre Channel

A technology for extremely high speed data transmission. 2Gb/s Fibre interfaces are available on many RaidWeb Serial ATA RAID & IDE RAID units. Current Fibre transfer can be up to 4 Gigabytes per second. Fibre can be copper based or optical, which offers maximum speed over long cable runs.

+Firmware

Instructions and data that's programmed directly into Non Volatile Random Access Memory (NVRAM) to control RAID operation. This firmware is upgradable, but not changeable like software. Arena RAID firmware updates on our site.

+Graphical User Interface (GUI)

A GUI is an interface that can be used to check RAID operation and status, using a monitor and a mouse. Global Eyes is the GUI for Arena RAID units.

+Host, Host System

Any computer to which a RAID unit is attached. The host provides an O/S to access RAID data.

+Host Bus Adapter (HBA)

An adapter allowing input and output of data between the RAID and the host system. Fibre channel units, in particular, ofter require specialized HBAs to interface with RAIDs, while SCSI can be considered a more general HBA.

+Hot Swap

The ability to replace a hard drive, fan, power supply, etc. while the RAID is operational, reducing down time. All of the RaidWeb Serial ATA RAID & IDE RAID units support hot swap technology.

+Hot Spare

The ability of a RAID to have one implemented drive replace a defective drive upon failure. In an array, the hot spare disk automatically takes over the function of a failed drive.

+iSCSI

A type of storage that allows SCSI commands to travel over a network. iSCSI RAID units utilize Ethernet connections, like NAS, but still allow block level storage like RAID devices.

+JBOD

An acronym for Just a Bunch Of Disks. Many RAID units support JBOD, although it's not technically a RAID level. JBOD means that the drives in an enclosure aren't striped and function independently. JBOD does not provide data redundancy.

+NAS

An acronym for Network Attached Storage. NAS units attach to networks, usually through an Ethernet connection. NAS units can run RAID levels and provide redundancy. Most NAS systems contain a processor and/or an operating system (O/S) for operational functions.