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

Chapter 7. Administering File Systems

In This Chapter

• Understanding file system types

• Partitioning disks

• Mounting file systems

• Unmounting file systems

• Checking the systems

• Checking disk space with du and df

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 ...