File System Structures

There are two fundamental structural elements to understand in most file systems:

  • The logical directory structure

  • The layout of data within a storage address space

Logical Directory Structures

The most obvious and intuitive structure in a file system is the logical structure of directories, also referred to as folders. This structure is usually represented as a tree hierarchy that starts with a single root directory. Each directory in the hierarchy can contain a number of files and subdirectories, which in turn can have additional files and directories. It's assumed that readers of this book are familiar with file system directory structures as users of computer systems. A hierarchical directory tree is shown in Figure 14-2 ...

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