Click on the image to zoom
What is a file?
A file is a collection of information, such as text, data or images saved on a storage medium like a hard disk.
File system:
A file system is the way in which an operating system manages a set of hierarchical files. It defines how files are named and where they are placed logically for storage and retrieval on storage devices. A journaling file system provides quick recovery time by logging the file system metadata. Data integrity is ensured because updates to files' metadata are written to a serial log on disk before the original disk blocks are updated.
Aspects of file systems:
The most familiar file systems make use of an underlying data storage device that offers access to an array of fixed-size blocks, sometimes called sectors, generally 512 bytes each. The file system software is responsible for organizing these sectors into files and directories, and keeping track of which sectors belong to which file and which are not being used.
