The heads of a hard drive are the tiny sensors that interface with other devices in order to read and write data—if you placed the end of a hard drive’s plug under magnification, these would be the tiny metallic ‘pointy bits’ that fit into the socket. A platter is the part of a hard drive where data is stored; these are inside the hard drive and look like glass or aluminum discs. The most common interaction here is that heads are what your device uses to write files onto the platter.

Short for printed circuit board. A non-conductive surface within an electronic device that uses conductive tracks, copper sheets, and other types of devices to connect the various components of the machine. If the machine itself were a series of railways, think of the PCB as the ground upon which the tracks are laid.

A specific type of software that provides control, monitoring and data manipulation for an electronic device. Firmware is generally crucial to a system’s operation and meant to be permanent—your average user shouldn’t be able to tamper with, modify or uninstall firmware. An example of computer firmware is the BIOS—software a user very rarely interacts with unless doing some extremely advanced troubleshooting of the system. Other machines that user firmware are television remote controls, or navigational computers installed in automobiles.

Solid state drive/disk. A type of more advanced hard drive technology named so because it is constructed without any moving mechanical components—it’s effectively one ‘solid block’ of machinery. This is achieved by using integrated circuit assemblies, a.k.a. having electronic circuits built into one small plate (known as the “chip”). The result is a tougher, more secure hard drive that’s also more expensive than traditional types of storage.

Redundant array of independent (formerly inexpensive) disks. A type of data storage technology that makes use of multiple physical disk drive components and has them as one unit in order to achieve data redundancy and possibly improve performance—effectively files being stored across several drives multiple times in order to make their storage even more secure. There are several ways to distribute drives in this manner, known as RAID levels (usually noted by a number i.e. RAID 0, RAID 1), and higher RAID levels provide greater protection against loss of files and development of bad sectors.

Simply put, removing data from a drive in a safe manner—the most common example is properly uninstalling a program, instead of simply hitting Delete. Not undergoing a secure wipe of files may lead to software problems.

Encoding information in such that only someone with authorization can access it. Most often achieved through security keys or passwords, though more advanced (and obscure) forms of encryption exist that need entire programs to decode them for reading.

Removing a password set in the system, or resetting it to the default password (as part of restoring to factory settings). Generally done to provide a new user or a technician access to some files they couldn’t access otherwise.

Parts in a drive’s storage space damaged to the point that they are no longer recognizable by the device itself. Can come about due to physical damage to a drive’s components, or software damage (i.e. corrupted files).

One of the most common forms of data storage device today, usually no larger than a man’s thumb. Still in common use due to their compatibility with USB ports, which most computers have built into them for interfacing with a variety of devices and peripherals. Flash drives are most often used for quickly transferring small to medium files from one device to another.

ROM is for read-only memory, or the segment of a computer’s software that is basically hardwired into it—a.k.a. meant to be effectively unmodifiable (usually due to it being crucial to a system’s functions: see firmware). The ROM chip is the part of a computer’s circuitry that contains this very important piece of data. Take note that ROM isn’t impossible to modify—just very difficult, and extremely risky to the device’s functions.

The part of a computer’s circuitry that interfaces with a peripheral device—basically any other device that plugs into the computer and functions with it (most notably the mouse, keyboard and speakers). Some computers have controllers that are external to the device, but they are more often integrated into the circuitry of the computer itself. Not to be confused with controller in the gaming sense, which refers to peripherals that plug into a device (computer or gaming console) and manipulate its operations; usually referred to as game controllers or less formally, gamepads (“pad” for short).