Glossary of PC terms: F

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FAT (File Allocation Table)	Area of the disk or diskette containing information about files on the disk, clusters making these files, and free area on the disk.  FAT keeps a track of all information on the disks and all relations between different pieces of information.  A loss of FAT translates into loss of data, since the system will not be able to attribute data to specific files even if the data themselves will be intact.
Fast SCSI	Fast SCSI is a variation of SCSI-2 that doubles the data transfer rate by increasing the speed at which data is transferred, as opposed to wide SCSI which increases the volume of data transferred. Most SCSI hard disk drives now offer a combination of both variables, called fast/wide, for an even faster data transfer rate. For details go here.
FCI (Flux Changes Per Inch)	A measure of linear density of magnetic recording. See also BPI.
FC-AL (Fibre Channel-Arbitrated Loop)	FC-AL is a high performance serial interface that provides extremely high data transfer rates and allows data to be quickly transmitted over long distances.
Formatting	Procedure needed to make the drive ready for data storage and retrieval. At first, the drive is physically divided into tracks and sectors. Low-level formatting stays unchanged through the entire life of the drive unless the drive is re-formatted. The next level of formatting - partitioning - means dividing the drive into logical drives (C:, D:, E:, etc.). Every hard drive has at least one "primary partition" (C:) and may have many extended partitions. Finally, high level formatting creates a root directory, from which all other subdirectories could be created, and creates a File Allocation Table (FAT), which keeps track of all information on the disks and all relationships between different pieces of information.
Form factor	Term used to describe the drive's disk size.  Currently, the following form-factors (disk diameters) are the most common: 3.5" and 3.0"(desk-top computer and servers) and 2.5" (laptops). A new 1" format was recently introduced in drives for palm-size computers and digital cameras (i.e., IBM Microdrive).
Formatted capacity	A storage capacity on a disk after formatting.
File	...
Firmware	Permanent set of instructions and data programmed directly into the circuitry of read-only memory for controlling the operation of the computer or disk drive. Distinct from software, which is stored in read/write memory and can be altered.
Folder	A sub-directory in DOS and Windows terms.
Flash memory (card)	Flash memory is called so because the entire sections of the microchip are erased at once or (flashed).   Flash memory cards lose power when they are disconnected (removed) from the PC, yet the data stored in it is retained for indefinitely long time or until it is rewritten. The are two basic type of Flash cards: PC Cards (linear cards) and ATA Flash PC cards.  For details go here.
Flexure	see Gimbal
Floppy disk	A flexible magnetic media with a typical capacity of 1.44 MB.
Flying height	The smallest distance separating the slider in Winchester-type storage systems (all modern hard drives, some of the removable storage systems) and the disk. Flying height equals zero in contact recording systems.
Frame	The time between the start of one SOF data transaction and the start of the subsequent SOF data transaction.  Frame consists of a series of transactions.
Frequency Modulation (FM)	An outdated data encoding scheme.  This technology used up to half of the disk space with timing information for the encoding process and was replaced with better standard called MFM.
Full duplex	Computer data transmission in both directions simultaneously.

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