MFM
Abbreviation of modified frequency modulation, an encoding scheme used by PC floppy disk drives and older hard drives. A competing scheme, known as RLL (run length limited), produces faster data access speeds and can increase a disk’s storage capacity by up to 50 percent. RLL is used on most newer hard drives.
Read Also:
- MFLOP
Short for mega floating-point operations per second, MFLOPs are a common measure of the speed of computers used to perform floating-point calculations. Another common measure of computer speed and power is MIPS (million instructions per second), which indicates integer performance.
- MFT
Short for Master File Table, a file that contains information in the form of 1024-byte records about every other file and directory in an NTFS volume (i.e., it is essentially a table of metadata). The data stored in the MFT is what the operating systemneeds to retrieve the files. For example, it contains file permissions, […]
- MFP
Short for multifunction peripheral, a single device that serves several functions, including printing. Typically, multifunction printers can act as a printer, a scanner, a fax machine and a photocopier. These devices are becoming a popular option for SOHO users because they’re less expensive than buying three or four separate devices. The downsides to combining all […]
- MGCP
Short for Media Gateway Control Protocol, developed by Telcordia and Level 3 Communications, a control and signal standards to compete with the older H.323 standard for the conversion of audio signals carried on telephone circuits (PSTN ) to data packets carried over the Internet or other packet networks. The reason new standards are being developed […]
- Megahertz (MHz)
Abbreviation for megahertz. One MHz represents one million cycles per second. The speed of microprocessors, called the clock speed, is measured in megahertz. For example, a microprocessor that runs at 200 MHz executes 200 million cycles per second. Each computer instruction requires a fixed number of cycles, so the clock speed determines how many instructions […]