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---
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tags:
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- disks
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- computer-architecture
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---
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# What are disks?
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A disk is a mass storage [block_device](Devices.md) which we
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can write to and read from.
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## SCSI
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- Small Computer System Interface, responsible for handling disk access on most
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Linux systems.
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- It is a protocol that allows communicaton between printers, scanners and other
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peripherals in addition to harddisks.
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## Disk schematic
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The following diagram represents the basic anatomy of a disk device.
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- A disk is divided up into [partitions](Partitions.md)
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which are subsections of the overall disk. The kernel presents each partition
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as a [block device](Devices.md) as it would with an entire
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disk.
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- The disk dedicates a small part of its contents to a **partition table**: this
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defines the different partitions that comprise the total disk space.
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- The **filesystem** is a database of files and directories: this comprises the
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bulk of the partition and is what you interact with in
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[user space](User_Space.md) when reading and writing data.
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