CompTIA A+ Certification All-in-One Exam Guide, Eleventh Edition (Exams 220-1101 & 220-1102), 11th Edition

CHAPTER 8

Mass Storage Technologies

In this chapter, you will learn how to

•   Explain how hard drives work

•   Identify mass storage interface connections

•   Describe how to protect data with RAID

•   Describe hard drive installation

Of all the hardware on a PC, none gets more attention—or gives more anguish—than mass storage drives. There’s a good reason for this: if a drive breaks, you lose data. As you probably know, when data goes, you have to redo work, restore from a backup, or worse, just kiss the data goodbye. It’s good to worry about data, because that data runs the office, maintains the payrolls, and stores the e-mail.

This chapter focuses on how drives work, beginning with the internal layout and organization of drives. You’ll ...