24 lines
1.1 KiB
Markdown
24 lines
1.1 KiB
Markdown
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---
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tags:
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- Linux
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- Operating_Systems
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- disks
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- devices
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---
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# What are disks?
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A disk is a mass storage [block_device](/Operating_Systems/Devices.md) which we 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 Linux systems.
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* It is a protocol that allows communicaton between printers, scanners and other 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](/Operating_Systems/Disks/Partitions.md) which are subsections of the overall disk. The kernel presents each partition as a [block device](/Operating_Systems/Devices.md#Devices.md) as it would with an entire disk.
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* The disk dedicates a small part of its contents to a **partition table**: this 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 bulk of the partition and is what you interact with in [user space](/Operating_Systems/User_Space.md) when reading and writing data.
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