Skip to Content
MAC OS® X UNIX® Toolbox: 1000+ Commands for the Mac OS® X
book

MAC OS® X UNIX® Toolbox: 1000+ Commands for the Mac OS® X

by Christopher Negus
March 2009
Intermediate to advanced
285 pages
5h 46m
English
Wiley
Content preview from MAC OS® X UNIX® Toolbox: 1000+ Commands for the Mac OS® X

Chapter 7. Administering File Systems

File systems provide the structures in which files, directories, devices, and other elements of the system are accessed from your Mac OS X system. Mac OS X supports many different file systems, including HFS+ (default), HFS, UFS, AFP, ISO 9660, FAT, UDF, NFS, SMBFS, NTFS (read only), FTP, and WebDAV.

HFS+ is the preferred file system on Mac OS X. It supports many advanced features, such as journaling, quotas, byte-range locking, Finder information in metadata, multiple encodings, hard and symbolic links, aliases, support for hiding file extensions on a per-file basis, and so on.

Creating and managing disk partitions, and the file systems on partitions, are among the most critical jobs in administering a Mac OS X system. That's because if you mess up your file system, you might very well lose the critical data stored on your computer's hard disk or removable media.

This chapter contains commands for partitioning storage media, creating file systems, mounting and unmounting file systems, and checking file systems for errors and disk space.

Understanding File System Basics

If you're coming to Mac OS X from another BSD or Linux background, the first thing you need to know is that partitions on the Mac are called volumes. Each volume represents an addressable section of the hard disk that is ...

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.

Read now

Unlock full access

More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly

AirBnbBlueOriginElectronic ArtsHomeDepotNasdaqRakutenTata Consultancy Services

QuotationMarkO’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
QuotationMarkI wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
QuotationMarkI’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
QuotationMarkI'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Mark W.
Embedded Software Engineer

You might also like

Apple® Automator with AppleScript® Bible

Apple® Automator with AppleScript® Bible

Thomas Myer
What Successful Project Managers Do

What Successful Project Managers Do

W. Scott Cameron, Jeffrey S. Russell, Edward J. Hoffman, Alexander Laufer

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9780470478363Purchase book