head
(n.) The mechanism that reads data from or writes data to a magnetic disk or tape. If the head becomes dirty, it will not work properly. This is one of the first things to check if your disk drive or tape drive begins to malfunction.
The head is sometimes called a read/write head. Double-sided floppy disk drives have two heads, one for each side of the disk. Hard disk drives have many heads, usually two for each platter.
Read Also:
- head crash
(n.) A serious disk drive malfunction. A head crash usually means that the head has scratched or burned the disk. In a hard disk drive, the head normally hovers a few microinches from the disk. If the head becomes misaligned or if dust particles come between it and the disk, it can touch the disk. […]
- Header
(1) In many disciplines of computer science, a header is a unit of information that precedes a data object. In a network transmission, a header is part of the data packet and contains transparent information about the file or the transmission. In file management, a header is a region at the beginning of each file […]
- attenuation crosstalk ratio
Also known as headroom, attenuation crosstalk ratio (ACR) is the difference between attenuation and crosstalk at a given frequency along a cable. Measured in decibels, ACR is a calculation used in networking transmission to assure that a signal transmitted across a twisted-pair cable is stronger at the receiving end than any interference signals imposed on […]
- heap sort
A sorting algorithm that works by first organizing the data to be sorted into a special type of binary tree called a heap. The heap itself has, by definition, the largest value at the top of the tree, so the heap sort algorithm must also reverse the order. It does this with the following steps: […]
- heap
(1) In programming, an area of memory reserved for data that is created at runtime — that is, when the program actually executes. In contrast, the stack is an area of memory used for data whose size can be determined when the program is compiled. (2) A special type of binary tree in which the […]