In the case of a RAID-1 array, one drive must be copied to the other. In the case of RAID-5 arrays, the parity information must be generated. Burst - A term used to describe data words which are transmitted as a single group across a bus without interruption by another device. Bus Mastering - A method of data transfer which allows data to be moved between a peripheral controller and system memory without interaction with the host CPU or a third party DMA controller. A cache management algorithm monitors the data access patterns and selects which data from the slower device is to be kept in the cache for quick access.
Caches are normally transparent or hidden from the accessing device.
A read-only storage device which retrieves up to 640 Mbytes of information from a removable laser disk similar to an audio compact disk. Commands for DPT adapters are stored in Command Packets. The mode of operation of a Redundant Array in which it can continue to be accessed after a component drive has failed. For read accesses, data is synthesized from the remaining good drives in the array. For write accesses, data is stored on the remaining good drives in such a way that is can be restored to the failed drive once it is replaced.