ALSO CALLED: Network Acceleration Cards, Hardware Accelerators, Hardware Acceleration Cards, Accelerator Boards, Accelerators, CPU Accelerator Hardware, CPU Accelerators, and Network Accelerators
DEFINITION: Acceleration hardware refers to devices that speed up data communications, storage and retrieval, encryption and decryption, mathematical operations, graphics, and Web page viewing. Acceleration hardware can consist of an individual integrated circuit (also called an IC or chip), a printed circuit card, or a self-contained system.

A NAS accelerator  … 
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ACCELERATION HARDWARE DEFINITION (continued): …  is a printed circuit card that offloads TCP/IP processing from a microprocessor. This can reduce latency, increase throughput, and reduce overhead costs in a storage area network (SAN). A server accelerator card, also known as an SSL card, is a PCI card that generates encryption keys for secure transactions on e-commerce Web sites. A graphics accelerator is a computer component to which a program can offload the sending and refreshing of images to a display, optimizing special effects. … 
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