Encyclopedia > Direct access storage device

Article Content

Direct access storage device

A direct access storage device, or DASD (pronounced DAZ-dee) is a form of magnetic disk storage, historically used in the mainframe and minicomputer (mid-range) environments.

The redundant array of independent disks (RAID) is a form of DASD.

"Direct access" means that all data can be accessed directly in -- a form of indexing also known as "random access" -- as opposed to having to seek sequentially through the data.

All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!

Featured Article

Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

... a free and democratic society. This limitation on rights has been used in the last twenty years to prevent a variety of objectionable conduct such as hate speech and ...