Glossary of PC terms: L

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Landing zone	A special part of the magnetic hard disk in the shape of a narrow circular band used for landing a slider after powering a drive down. The rest of the disk is typically referred to as the data zone. This part of the disk is usually specially textured.
Latency	The average time it takes for a bit of data to rotate under the read element after it was positioned over the needed track.
Laser texturing	Click here
Lands	The areas in between the pits, which are the holes on the surface of the optical storage media. Lands are the coded data and carry the information. See also Pits.
Linear bit density	Bit density in the circumferential direction (around the track). Typically measured in BPI - bits per inch. See also track density.  Track density times linear density equals areal density.
Loading/Unloading the slider	see Load/Unload and  Head parking.
Load/Unload	The idea of Load-Unload technology is that when the drive is turned off and the slider is not flying, it lands on a specially prepared ramp outside the disk where it rests till the next power-on cycle.  Newest mobile and server drives use this technology. See also CSS.
Low-level formatting	The process of creating tracks and sectors on the disk surface so that the operating system can access the required areas.
LVD (Low Voltage Differential)	The next generation of SCSI devices. It is also known as Ultra-2 SCSI.  LVD combines the lower power and cost of single-ended SCSI with the long cable lengths and data integrity of high voltage differential (HVD) SCSI. It also doubles the data transfer rate of Ultra SCSI.  The advantage of this technology is in greater cable length (up to 12 meters for 15 devices) and faster data rate.

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