ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we will examine the components of a le system and look specically at both the Windows le system and the Unix/Linux le system.
FILES AND DIRECTORIES A le system exists at two levels of abstraction. ere is the physical nature of the le system-the data storage devices, the le index, and the mapping process of taking a name and identifying its physical location within the hard disks (and other storage media). ere is also the logical nature of the le system-how the physical system is partitioned into independently named entities. As both users and system administrators, we are mostly interested in the logical le system. e details for how the les and directories are distributed
only becomes of interest when we must troubleshoot our le system (e.g., corrupt les, the need to defragment the le system). We will take a brief look at the physical nature of le systems later in this chapter, but for now, we will concentrate on the logical side.
