Comptia A+ Core 1 -- Section 3 / Storage

Laptop / Notebook

HDD:

• 5,400 rpm

• 2.5” / 3.5”

Desktops

HDD:

• 7,200 rpm

• 2.5” / 3.5”

Gaming & Servers

HDD:

• 10,000 rpm

• 3.5”

Enterprise & Data Servers

HDD:

• 15,000 rpm

• 3.5”

eSATA

Cable

• 1.5 GBps - 6 GBps

USB

Cable

• 480 Mbps - 40 GBps

Thunderbolt

Cable

• 10 GBps - 80 GBps

Disk Striping

• A method of storage that spreads data bits across all disks in the array, increasing performance and capacity

Disk Mirroring

• Actively duplicates data bits across two disks to prevent data loss

Parity Data

• A small representative value that can be used to recreate data if data is lost

RAID 0

• Uses disk striping to combine drives into one larger and faster logical drive

  • + Speed / NO redundancy

RAID 1

• Provides data protection by mirroring data across two disks

  • NO Speed / + Redundancy

RAID 5

• Uses disk striping to combine drives into one larger and faster logical drive and distributes parity across all disks in the array

  • + Speed / + Redundancy

RAID 10 (1+0)

• Combines disks into RAID 1 arrays and then combines those arrays into a RAID 0 array

  • + Faster speed / + More redundancy

SATA 1

Cable (SATA):

• 1.5 GBps / 150 Mbps

SATA 2

Cable (SATA):

• 3 GBps / 300 Mbps

SATA 3

Cable (SATA):

• 6 GBps / 600 Mbps

NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express)

• PCIe based SSD drive which provides the best performance

M.2

• SSD form factor

B Key

M.2 Connector:

• SATA SSD

  • SATA cable

M Key

M.2 Connector:

• NVMe SSD

  • PCIe cable

B + M Key

M.2 Connector:

• SATA or NVMe SSD

  • SATA or PCIe cable

mSATA

• An older, portable device SSD form factor superseded by M.2

SAS (Serial Attached SCSI)

• High speed point-to-point serial protocol that moves data to and from computer storage devices.