Chapter 6 Storage

3. What should you do first to repair a drive that is acting sluggish? A. Remove the drive and recover the data. B. Run Disk Cleanup. C. Run Disk Defragmenter. D. Scan for viruses.

C Attempt to defragment the disk. If it is not necessary, Windows lets you know. Then you can move to other options, such as scanning the drive for viruses.

1. What does the x refer to in Compact Disc technology? A. 150 KB/s B. 1.32 MB/s C. 150 MB/s D. 4.5 MB/s

A The x in CD technology is equal to 150 KB/s. A 1x drive can read or write 150 KB/s, a 2x drive can read or write 300 KB/s, and so on. 1.32 MB/s is the 1x speed of a DVD. 150 MB/s is the maximum data transfer rate of a SATA revision 1.0 drive. 4.5 MB/s is the 1x speed of a Blu-ray disc.

6. Which of the following are possible symptoms of hard drive failure? (Select the two best answers.) A. System lockup B. Antivirus alerts C. Failing bootup files D. Network drive errors E. BIOS doesn't recognize the drive

A and C System lockups and failed boot files or other failing file operations are possible symptoms of hard drive failure. Antivirus alerts tell you that the operating system has been compromised, viruses should be quarantined, and a full scan should be initiated. Sometimes hard drives can fail due to heavy virus activity, but usually if the malware is caught quickly enough, the hard drive should survive. Network drives are separate from the local hard drive; inability to connect to a network drive suggests a network configuration issue. If the BIOS doesn't recognize the drive, consider a BIOS update.

7. One of your customers attempts to copy a DVD with a third-party application. It reads the source DVD fine, but when a blank disc is inserted, the program keeps asking the customer to insert blank media. What are some possible reasons for this? (Select the three best answers.) A. The customer is using the wrong DVD type. B. The program cannot copy the DVD due to copyright laws. C. There isn't enough free space on the hard drive. D. A CD was inserted into the drive. E. The drive is a CD-RW drive. F. The DVD was inserted upside down.

A, D, and F If the source DVD was read fine, there are three possible correct answers: A blank CD was inserted into the drive; an incorrect DVD type was inserted into the drive; or the DVD was inserted upside down. The hard drive doesn't play into this scenario because the program's message is simply to insert blank media. The drive can't be a CD-RW if it accepted the source DVD.

2. Which of the following is the delay it takes for the hard drive to access a particular sector on the disk? A. Actuator B. Latency C. Lag D. Propagation

B Latency is the delay it takes for a magnetic hard disk drive to access the data; it is directly related to the rotational speed (RPM) of the disk.

1. Which level of RAID uses two disks only? A. RAID 0 B. RAID 1 C. RAID 5 D. Striping

B RAID 1 (mirroring) uses two disks only. RAID 0 (striping) can use two disks or more. RAID 5 (striping with parity) can use three disks or more.

4. If a user wants to write information more than one time to a DVD, which type should you recommend? (Select all that apply.) A. DVD-R B. DVD-RW C. DVD+RW D. DVD+R

B and C DVD-RW and DVD+RW are the rewritable versions of DVDs. DVD-R and DVD+R are write-once formats.

4. You discover that a newer SDXC card won't work in the card reader of a user's PC. It works fine in another computer's card reader and standard SD cards work fine in the user's PC. What should you do to fix the problem? A. Format the card. B. Install the latest firmware and drivers. C. Purchase a new external USB card reader. D. Use a CF card instead.

B. If older SD cards work but new ones don't, install the latest firmware and/or drivers for the card reader. Do this before trying other technologies or making purchases. No reason to try formatting the card if it works fine on another computer.

2. Which level of RAID stripes data and parity across three or more disks? A. RAID 0 B. RAID 1 C. RAID 5 D. Striping

C RAID 5 stripes data and parity across three or more disks. RAID 0 does not stripe parity; it stripes data only and can use two disks or more. RAID 1 uses two disks only. Striping is another name for RAID 0.

3. Which type of controller is built into a CF card? A. SATA B. IDE C. ATA D. SCSI

C An ATA controller is built into the CF card. ATA (for example, Ultra ATA/133) is SATA's predecessor. This technology was used by the now-deprecated IDE drive. SCSI is another less used technology meant for servers and power workstations.

5. Which of the following devices is hot-swappable? A. RAID B. Tape drive C. Hard drive D. DVD drive

C Hard drives can be hot-swappable. This is common in NAS devices and advanced servers. It is not common in PCs. Tape drives and DVD drives are not hot-swappable. However, they use media that can be inserted and removed while the computer is on. Tricky, eh? Be ready for these types of questions. RAID is not a device, per se, but a technology that can potentially employ hot-swappable drives.

7. You just replaced a SATA hard drive that you suspected had failed. You also replaced the data cable between the hard drive and the motherboard. When you reboot the computer, you notice that the SATA drive is not recognized by the BIOS. What most likely happened to cause this? A. The drive has not been formatted yet. B. The BIOS does not support SATA. C. The SATA port is faulty. D. The drive is not jumpered properly.

C Most likely, the SATA port is faulty. It might have been damaged during the upgrade. To test the theory, you would plug the SATA data cable into another port on the motherboard. We can't format the drive until it has been recognized by the BIOS, which, by the way, should recognize SATA drives if the motherboard has SATA ports! SATA drives don't use jumpers unless they need to coexist with older IDE drives.

1. What is the maximum data transfer rate of SATA revision 2.0? A. 3.0 Mb/s B. 600 MB/s C. 300 MB/s D. 1.5 GB/s

C SATA Revision 2.0 can transfer a maximum of 300 MB/s (but most devices won't ever attain that maximum). The standard specifies the transmission of 3 Gb/s (notice the lowercase 'b' for bits); 600 MB/s is the data transfer rate of SATA Revision 3.0.

5. A customer complains that an important disc is stuck in the computer's DVD-ROM drive. What should you recommend to the customer? A. To get a screwdriver and disassemble the drive B. To format the disc C. To use a paper clip to eject the tray D. To dispose of the drive and replace the media

C Tell the customer to use a paper clip to eject the DVD-ROM tray. Disassembling the drive is not necessary; the customer shouldn't be told to do this. If the disc is rewritable, formatting it would erase the contents, even if you could format in this scenario. Never tell a customer to dispose of a DVD-ROM drive; they rarely fail.

2. How are most SD cards formatted by the manufacturer? A. As FAT32 B. As NTFS C. As exFAT D. As FAT16

C exFAT is the most common file system used by SD cards (especially SDXC). FAT32 is the standard for USB flash drives. NTFS is the file system used by Windows. If they want to, users can reformat most solid-state devices as NTFS. FAT16 is an older file system (simply known as FAT) used in legacy Windows systems.

8. You are troubleshooting a SATA hard drive that doesn't function on a PC. When you try it on another computer, it works fine. You suspect a power issue and decide to take voltage readings from the SATA power connector coming from the power supply. Which of the following following readings should you find? A. 5 V and 12 V B. 5 V, 12 V, and 24 V C. 3.3 V, 5 V, and 12 V D. 3.3 V and 12 V

C If you test a SATA power cable, you should find 3.3 V (orange wire), 5 V (red wire), and 12 V (yellow wire). If any of these don't test properly, try another SATA power connector.

2. Which of the following has the largest potential for storage capacity? A. CD-R B. CD-RW C. DVD-RW D. Blu-ray

D Blu-ray, at a maximum of 50 GB, has the largest storage capacity. CDs top out just under 1 GB. DVDs have a maximum of 17 GB.

1. What should you do before physically removing a USB flash drive? (Select the best answer.) A. Turn it off. B. Shut down Windows. C. Format the drive. D. Use the Safely Remove Hardware icon.

D In Windows, right-click the Safely Remove Hardware icon in the Notification Area and then click Eject to shut down power to the device. Shutting off Windows is another possibility, but it's not the best answer because it is time-consuming.

3. Which level of RAID contains two sets of mirrored disks that are then striped? A. RAID 0 B. RAID 1 C. RAID 5 D. RAID 10

D RAID 10 contains two sets of mirrored disks that are then striped. RAID 0 is a set of two or more disks that stripe data. RAID 1 is a mirror. RAID 5 is striping with parity.

3. What is the maximum capacity of a standard size, dual-layer Blu-ray disc? A. 700 MB B. 4.7 GB C. 17 GB D. 50 GB

D Standard size (12 cm) dual-layer Blu-ray discs have a maximum capacity of 50 GB. A typical CD capacity is 700 MB. 4.7 GB is the capacity of the common DVD-5. 17 GB is the capacity of a DVD-18 (using both sides).

4. How much data can a SATA revision 3.0 drive transfer per second? A. 1.5 Gb/s B. 3.0 Gb/s C. 4.5 Gb/s D. 6.0 Gb/s E. 16.0 Gb/s

D SATA Revision 3.0 drives can transfer 6.0 Gb/s. Revision 1.0 does 1.5 Gb/s. Revision 2.0 does 3.0 Gb/s. Revision 3.2 is 16 Gb/s.

6. A marketing kiosk requires a CD-ROM to be in the drive for the program to work correctly. However, the kiosk fails to boot when restarted. What should you do? A. Change the drive letter assignments. B. Defrag the hard drive. C. Replace the CD-ROM with rewritable media. D. Configure the BIOS settings.

D You should configure the BIOS boot order so that the CD-ROM is first; then the kiosk computer will boot to that drive. Changing drive letter assignments in the operating system will have no effect on the boot order. The hard drive has nothing to do with this scenario. And if you replace the CD-ROM, you lose the program that the kiosk needs to boot to. 7