RAID is a data storage virtualization technology that combines multiple physical disk drive components into one or more logical units for the purposes of data redundancy, performance improvement, or both. This is in contrast to the previous concept of highly reliable mainframe disk drives referred to as "single large expensive disk" (SLED).
A USB flash drive is a data storage device that includes flash memory with an integrated USB interface. It is typically removable, rewritable and much smaller than an optical disc. Most weigh less than 30 g (1 oz). Since first appearing on the market in late 2000, as with virtually all other computer memory devices, storage capacities have risen while prices have dropped. As of March 2016, flash drives with anywhere from 8 to 256 gigabytes (GB) were frequently sold, while 512 GB and 1 terabyte (TB) units were less frequent. As of 2018, 2 TB flash drives were the largest available in terms of storage capacity. Some allow up to 100,000 write/erase cycles, depending on the exact type of memory chip used, and are thought to physically last between 10 and 100 years under normal circumstances.
SystemRescue is a Linux distribution for x86 64 and x86 computers. The primary purpose of SystemRescue is to repair unbootable or otherwise damaged computer systems after a system crash. SystemRescue is not intended to be used as a permanent operating system. It runs from a Live CD, a USB flash drive or any type of hard drive. It was designed by a team led by François Dupoux, and is based on Arch Linux since version 6.0. Starting with version 6.0, it has systemd as its init system.
A disk array controller is a device that manages the physical disk drives and presents them to the computer as logical units. It almost always implements hardware RAID, thus it is sometimes referred to as RAID controller. It also often provides additional disk cache.
A host controller interface (HCI) is a register-level interface that enables a host controller for USB or IEEE 1394 hardware to communicate with a host controller driver in software. The driver software is typically provided with an operating system of a personal computer, but may also be implemented by application-specific devices such as a microcontroller.
S.M.A.R.T. is a monitoring system included in computer hard disk drives (HDDs) and solid-state drives (SSDs). Its primary function is to detect and report various indicators of drive reliability with the intent of anticipating imminent hardware failures.
The USB mass storage device class is a set of computing communications protocols, specifically a USB Device Class, defined by the USB Implementers Forum that makes a USB device accessible to a host computing device and enables file transfers between the host and the USB device. To a host, the USB device acts as an external hard drive; the protocol set interfaces with a number of storage devices.
U3 was a joint venture between SanDisk and M-Systems, producing a proprietary method of launching Windows software from special USB flash drives. Flash drives adhering to the U3 specification are termed "U3 smart drives". U3 smart drives come preinstalled with the U3 Launchpad. Applications that comply with U3 specifications are allowed to write files or registry information to the host computer, but they must remove this information when the flash drive is ejected. Customizations and settings are instead stored with the application on the flash drive.
Oracle VM VirtualBox is a type-2 hypervisor for x86 virtualization developed by Oracle Corporation.
CCleaner, developed by Piriform, is a utility used to clean potentially unwanted files and invalid Windows Registry entries from a computer. It is one of the longest-established system cleaners, first launched in 2004. It was originally developed for Microsoft Windows only, but in 2012, a macOS version was released. An Android version was released in 2014.
Recuva is an undeletion program for Windows, developed by Piriform. It is able to undelete files that have been marked as deleted; the operating system marks the areas of the disk in which they were stored as free space. Recuva can recover files deleted from internal and external hard disk drives, USB flash drives, memory cards, portable media players or all random-access storage mediums with a supported file system. Preview thumbnails of intact photos can be displayed in grid view mode and in the side bar.
Defraggler is a freemium defragmentation utility developed by Piriform, which can defragment individual files or groups of files on computer system. Defraggler runs on Microsoft Windows; it has support for all versions since Windows XP. It includes support for both IA-32 and x64 versions of these operating systems.
Piriform Ltd is a British software company based in London, owned since 2017 by Avast which itself become part of NortonLifeLock in 2022. The company develops cleaning and optimisation tools for Microsoft Windows, macOS and Android operating systems, including CCleaner, CCleaner Browser, Defraggler, Recuva and Speccy. On 22 September 2015, Piriform launched CCleaner Cloud, a tool to maintain computers remotely.
Intel Rapid Storage Technology (RST), until 2010 called Matrix RAID, is a firmware-based RAID solution built into a wide range of Intel chipsets. As of 2020, it includes a RAID system capable of RAID levels 0, 1, 5, and 10, a block level SSD caching accelerator with support for write-back and write-through modes for speed or data protection of any disk or RAID array, and support for intelligent caching, speedy recovery from certain issues, and for PCI Express based drives. Intel RST comes in two variants, RST for desktops, and RSTe for enterprise scenarios, although for many chipsets, the user can choose as both variants will operate correctly.
Smartmontools is a set of utility programs to control and monitor computer storage systems using the Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology (S.M.A.R.T.) system built into most modern (P)ATA, Serial ATA, SCSI/SAS and NVMe hard drives.
Speccy, developed by Piriform, is a freeware utility software and runs under Microsoft Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, Vista and XP for both IA-32 and x64 versions of these operating systems, which shows the user information about hardware and software of the computer. The information displayed by Speccy includes processor brand and model, hard drive size and speed, amount of memory (RAM), information about graphics card and operating system. Speccy is used to monitor what hardware is present in a system and how it is being used.
Hard Disk Sentinel (HDSentinel) is a computer hard disk drive-monitoring software for Windows, Linux and DOS operating systems.
XigmaNAS is network-attached storage (NAS) server software with a dedicated management web interface. It is free software under the terms of the Simplified BSD license.
Parted Magic is a commercial Linux distribution based on Slackware that comes with disk partitioning and data recovery tools. It is sold as a Linux-based bootable disk. The distribution's nomenclature is derived from the names of the GNU Parted and PartitionMagic software packages.
