Which of the following is not a component of an operating system?

• A. Kernel
• B. RAID
• C. Memory Management
• D. Multitasking

Answer: (B)

The concept being tested is what parts are fundamentally built into an operating system versus what sits outside it in storage hardware or as a separate layer. An operating system centers on managing hardware resources and providing core services: the kernel is the central component that handles core tasks, memory management takes care of allocating and protecting memory, and multitasking is the OS’s ability to run several processes at once by scheduling them over time. RAID, however, is a disk array technology that provides redundancy and/or performance by combining multiple drives. It is typically implemented in a hardware RAID controller or as a separate software layer, and while an OS may interface with or support software RAID, RAID itself is not a fundamental OS component. Therefore, RAID is not a core operating system component.