Data Storage Glossary of Terms
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Definitions from File Management to Incremental Backup

File Management
The method or functions used to view, manage and manipulate your user’s data files, locally on the storage server or remotely from the user’s workstations. This includes the monitoring of the file sizes, the content of these and the lifecycle of how long this business information is pertinent and should be stored.
File Filter
This function allows backup selections of your data to be restricted to certain types of files (either by extension .doc, .xls, .txt files or by date nothing older than 01/04/05).
Firewall
A firewall is a piece of hardware or software, which prevents unauthorised information / data from being sent from or received to a computer or computers in a network. For example it can be used to restrict users accessing certain websites or to stop programs from connecting to computers outside your network. It is however, more commonly put in place to stop external computers from trying to access your network, computers and data remotely.
Fragmentation
The splitting up of a large data file into smaller segments which can then be stored or sent across a network. It can also be used as a term for how much a storage media is split in a disorganised state, i.e. a hard drive that is badly fragmented takes longer to read / write files to it.
Full backup
This is usually created the first time a backup is run, as it takes a snapshot of all the data selected to be backed up. All data could be restored from this backup, with the need for additional incremental backup tapes, online archives to be accessed.
Gigabyte (GB)
This is a unit of size which is used to measure hard drive size or the amount of online / backup storage needed. It equates approximately to 1000MB, where (1MB = 25 Word document files).
Host
Is a computer or device in a network which stores not only data but applications as well for other client machines to access online, effectively “hosting” these.
Hot Spare
A drive within a RAID setup which takes over automatically the functions and rebuilds the data if one of the hard drives within the RAID array fails. Once the failed hard drive is replace it replicates the data back to this new drive and resumes its function as a spare.
HSM (Hierarchical Storage Management)
This is a automatic management process, used in conjunction with a policy setup describing the importance of data within an organisation. This process then moves older unused data onto a cheaper form of long term storage, e.g. accounts older than 5 years automatically moved from hard drive to tape.
Incremental backup
A method of only backing up files which have changed since the last full or incremental backup. Meaning only the latest changes / data is backed up, not the entirety of all the data within the backup set, allowing quicker backups of less data to be performed.
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