The most common form of storage media utilized in both commercial and domestic systems is the hard disk drive, consequently these devices feature heavily in digital investigations. Hard disk drives are a collection of complex components. These components include hardware and firmware elements that are essential for the effective operation of the drive. There are now a number of devices availabl...

In the last couple of years, hard-disk technology has experienced an unjustified progressive boost of the built-in cache size, affecting both the power consumption and the reliability of stored data. Large built-in caches offer limited benefits in terms of performance with respect to the smaller ones. Moreover, they need to be kept in write-through mode to preserve data in case of a power failu...

The hard X-rays in Cyg X-1 and similar black hole sources are possibly produced in an active corona atop an accretion disk. We suggest that the observed weakness of X-ray reflection from the disk is due to bulk motion of the emitting hot plasma away from the reflector. A mildly relativistic motion causes aberration reducing Xray emission towards the disk. This in turn reduces the reprocessed ra...