Flashcards on Operating Systems and System Management
Operating Systems and System Management for Students
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File Systems
24 cards
Card 1
Question: What is a file system in simple terms?
Answer: The method an operating system uses to store, name, and organize files on a disk; without it the drive is just a sequence of bits with no structure.
Card 2
Question: What happens when you format a drive?
Answer: You choose a file system and the OS writes a directory structure onto the disk — a map of where every file starts and ends.
Card 3
Question: Why is journaling useful in a file system?
Answer: The file system logs what it will do before doing it so after a power cut the OS can replay the log and recover interrupted writes.
Card 4
Question: Give an analogy used to explain why a file system is necessary.
Answer: A library with no shelves or catalog becomes unsearchable; a file system is like shelves, labels, and a catalog that let you find items quickly.
Card 5
Question: What are clusters/blocks and a typical size?
Answer: Small, fixed-size units the disk is divided into (called clusters on Windows or blocks on Linux); a typical size is 4 KB.
Card 6
Question: How does the OS record where a file's data is stored on disk?
Answer: It finds free blocks, writes the data, and records the block locations in a directory table (like a table of contents with page numbers).
Card 7
Question: What does deleting a file actually do to its data on disk?
Answer: The OS marks the file's blocks as available but does not erase the data, so the data remains until overwritten.
Card 8
Question: Why can file recovery tools sometimes restore deleted files?
Answer: Because deletion only marks blocks as free and the original data remains until overwritten.
Card 9
Question: What is fragmentation and why does it matter on HDDs?
Answer: Fragmentation is when a file is split across many non-adjacent blocks; it slows reading on HDDs because the disk head must move to multiple locations.
Card 10
Question: Are SSDs affected by fragmentation the same way as HDDs?
Answer: No — SSDs are not affected the same way because they access all locations equally fast.