|
DataVault
The DataVault was Thinking Machines' mass storage system, storing five gigabytes of data, expandable to ten gigabytes with transfer rates of 40 megabytes per second. Eight DataVaults could be operated in parallel for a combined data transfer rate of 320 megabytes per second for up to 80 gigabytes of data. Each DataVault unit stored its data in an array of 39 individual disk drives with data spread across the drives. Each 64-bit data chunk received from the I/O bus was split into two 32-bit words. After verifying parity, the DataVault controller added 7 bits of Error Correcting Code In computing, telecommunication, information theory, and coding theory, an error correction code, sometimes error correcting code, (ECC) is used for controlling errors in data over unreliable or noisy communication channels. The central idea is ... (ECC) and stored the resulting 39 bits on 39 individual drives. Subsequent failure of any one of the 39 drives would not impair reading of the data, sinc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thinking Machines
Thinking Machines Corporation was a supercomputer manufacturer and artificial intelligence (AI) company, founded in Waltham, Massachusetts, in 1983 by Sheryl Handler and W. Daniel "Danny" Hillis to turn Hillis's doctoral work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on massively parallel computing architectures into a commercial product named the Connection Machine. The company moved in 1984 from Waltham to Kendall Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts, close to the MIT AI Lab. Thinking Machines made some of the most powerful supercomputers of the time, and by 1993 the four fastest computers in the world were Connection Machines. The firm filed for bankruptcy in 1994; its hardware and parallel computing software divisions were acquired in time by Sun Microsystems. Supercomputer products On the hardware side, Thinking Machines produced several Connection Machine models (in chronological order): the CM-1, CM-2, CM-200, CM-5, and CM-5E. The CM-1 and 2 came first in models w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Standard RAID Levels
In computer storage, the standard RAID levels comprise a basic set of RAID ("redundant array of independent disks" or "redundant array of inexpensive disks") configurations that employ the techniques of striping, mirroring, or parity to create large reliable data stores from multiple general-purpose computer hard disk drives (HDDs). The most common types are RAID 0 (striping), RAID 1 (mirroring) and its variants, RAID 5 (distributed parity), and RAID 6 (dual parity). Multiple RAID levels can also be combined or ''nested'', for instance RAID 10 (striping of mirrors) or RAID 01 (mirroring stripe sets). RAID levels and their associated data formats are standardized by the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) in the Common RAID Disk Drive Format (DDF) standard. The numerical values only serve as identifiers and do not signify performance, reliability, generation, or any other metric. While most RAID levels can provide good protection against and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thinking Machines DataVault
In their most common sense, the terms thought and thinking refer to conscious cognitive processes that can happen independently of sensory stimulation. Their most paradigmatic forms are judging, reasoning, concept formation, problem solving, and deliberation. But other mental processes, like considering an idea, memory, or imagination, are also often included. These processes can happen internally independent of the sensory organs, unlike perception. But when understood in the widest sense, any mental event may be understood as a form of thinking, including perception and unconscious mental processes. In a slightly different sense, the term ''thought'' refers not to the mental processes themselves but to mental states or systems of ideas brought about by these processes. Various theories of thinking have been proposed, some of which aim to capture the characteristic features of thought. ''Platonists'' hold that thinking consists in discerning and inspecting Platonic forms and th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mass Storage
In computing, mass storage refers to the storage of large amounts of data in a persisting and machine-readable fashion. In general, the term is used as large in relation to contemporaneous hard disk drives, but it has been used large in relation to primary memory as for example with floppy disks on personal computers. Devices and/or systems that have been described as mass storage include tape libraries, RAID systems, and a variety of computer drives such as hard disk drives, magnetic tape drives, magneto-optical disc drives, optical disc drives, memory cards, and solid-state drives. It also includes experimental forms like holographic memory. Mass storage includes devices with removable and non-removable media. It does not include random access memory (RAM). There are two broad classes of mass storage: local data in devices such as smartphones or computers, and enterprise servers and data centers for the cloud. For local storage, SSDs are on the way to replacing HDDs. Consid ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Disk Drive
Disk storage (also sometimes called drive storage) is a general category of storage mechanisms where data is recorded by various electronic, magnetic, optical, or mechanical changes to a surface layer of one or more rotating disks. A disk drive is a device implementing such a storage mechanism. Notable types are the hard disk drive (HDD) containing a non-removable disk, the floppy disk drive (FDD) and its removable floppy disk, and various optical disc drives (ODD) and associated optical disc media. (The spelling ''disk'' and ''disc'' are used interchangeably except where trademarks preclude one usage, e.g. the Compact Disc logo. The choice of a particular form is frequently historical, as in IBM's usage of the ''disk'' form beginning in 1956 with the " IBM 350 disk storage unit".) Background Audio information was originally recorded by analog methods (see Sound recording and reproduction). Similarly the first video disc used an analog recording method. In the music indu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
I/O Bus
In computer architecture, a bus (shortened form of the Latin ''wikt:omnibus, omnibus'', and historically also called data highway or databus) is a communication system that transfers Data (computing), data between components inside a computer, or between computers. This expression covers all related Computer hardware, hardware components (wire, optical fiber, etc.) and software, including communication protocols. Early computer buses were parallel electrical wires with multiple hardware connections, but the term is now used for any physical arrangement that provides the same logical function as a parallel busbar, electrical busbar. Modern computer buses can use both parallel communication, parallel and bit serial connections, and can be wired in either a multidrop (electrical parallel) or Daisy chain (electrical engineering), daisy chain topology, or connected by switched hubs, as in the case of Universal Serial Bus (USB). Background and nomenclature Computer systems generall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Error Correcting Code
In computing, telecommunication, information theory, and coding theory, an error correction code, sometimes error correcting code, (ECC) is used for controlling errors in data over unreliable or noisy communication channels. The central idea is the sender encodes the message with redundant information in the form of an ECC. The redundancy allows the receiver to detect a limited number of errors that may occur anywhere in the message, and often to correct these errors without retransmission. The American mathematician Richard Hamming pioneered this field in the 1940s and invented the first error-correcting code in 1950: the Hamming (7,4) code. ECC contrasts with error detection in that errors that are encountered can be corrected, not simply detected. The advantage is that a system using ECC does not require a reverse channel to request retransmission of data when an error occurs. The downside is that there is a fixed overhead that is added to the message, thereby requiring a h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Computer Storage Devices
Computer data storage is a technology consisting of computer components and recording media that are used to retain digital data. It is a core function and fundamental component of computers. The central processing unit (CPU) of a computer is what manipulates data by performing computations. In practice, almost all computers use a storage hierarchy, which puts fast but expensive and small storage options close to the CPU and slower but less expensive and larger options further away. Generally, the fast volatile technologies (which lose data when off power) are referred to as "memory", while slower persistent technologies are referred to as "storage". Even the first computer designs, Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine and Percy Ludgate's Analytical Machine, clearly distinguished between processing and memory (Babbage stored numbers as rotations of gears, while Ludgate stored numbers as displacements of rods in shuttles). This distinction was extended in the Von Neumann arch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
.jpg "Click for more on -> Thinking Machines DataVault")
