A file system is a hierarchical structure of data on one or more disks or partitions. The actual structural details depend on the file system type. Can also refer to the collection of system software routines that manages and accesses files located on a computer's storage volumes.

Answered by jm , an ibibo Advisor, at 4:49 AM on November 18, 2007

A file system is a hierarchical structure of data on one or more disks or partitions. The actual structural details depend on the file system type. Can also refer to the collection of system software routines that manages and accesses files located on a computer's storage volumes. In UNIX, a separate part of the global file hierarchy. The global hierarchy can consist of multiple file systems in order to facilitate using disks that can be removed form the computer system, such as floppy disks and large disk packs.

Answered by @ , an ibibo Master, at 10:21 PM on November 17, 2007

file system The method for storing and retrieving files on a disk. A file system defines the directory structure for keeping track of the files and the path syntax required to access them. It also defines the way files are named as well as the maximum size of a file or volume. FAT, FAT32 and NTFS are file systems used on PCs, while HFS is used on Macs. Some operating systems support several; for example, Windows 2000 can use either FAT32 or NTFS.

Answered by Shishir , an ibibo Master, at 7:16 PM on November 17, 2007

A file system is the way in which files are named and where they are placed logically for storage and retrieval. The DOS, Windows, OS/2, Macintosh, and UNIX-based operating systems all have file systems in which files are placed somewhere in a hierarchical (tree) structure. A file is placed in a directory (folder in Windows) or subdirectory at the desired place in the tree structure. File systems specify conventions for naming files. These conventions include the maximum number of characters in a name, which characters can be used, and, in some systems, how long the file name suffix can be. A file system also includes a format for specifying the path to a file through the structure of directories. The underlying storage mechanism usually has no concept of a file. A hard disk knows of disk blocks, which are numbered in a certain way. These disk blocks contain binary data (usually: large numbers). The file system does the translation between the large numbers, and the view the users see, that is that of files, organised in a certain way. By Database concept, there are two different kinds of data: * Data that holds the files * Data that is used to describe what state the files are in. This is called Metadata. It then becomes possible to always keep the filesystem in a consistent state.

Answered by A.R.Karthick , an ibibo Master, at 5:57 PM on November 17, 2007

a file system (often also written as filesystem) is a method for storing and organizing computer files and the data they contain to make it easy to find and access them. File systems may use a data storage device such as a hard disk or CD-ROM and involve maintaining the physical location of the files, they might provide access to data on a file server by acting as clients for a network protocol (e.g., NFS, SMB, or 9P clients), or they may be virtual and exist only as an access method for virtual data (e.g., procfs). More formally, a file system is a set of abstract data types that are implemented for the storage, hierarchical organization, manipulation, navigation, access, and retrieval of data. File systems share much in common with database technology, but it is debatable whether a file system can be classified as a special-purpose database (DBMS). All files and directories in a Files-11 filesystem are contained inside one or more parent directories, and eventually under the root directory, the master file directory (see below). The filesystem is therefore organised in a tree-like structure. In this example (see right), File 2 has a directory entry under both Dir 2 and Dir 3; it is "in" both directories simultaneously. Even if removed from one, it would still exist in the other directory until removed from there also. This is similar to the concept of hard links in UNIX, although care must be taken that the file is not actually deleted on disks that are not set up for hard links (only available on ODS-5 disks, and then only if the disk has hard links enabled).

Answered by alokgupta14 , an ibibo Guru, at 5:52 PM on November 17, 2007

In computing, a file system (often also written as filesystem) is a method for storing and organizing computer files and the data they contain to make it easy to find and access them. File systems may use a data storage device such as a hard disk or CD-ROM and involve maintaining the physical location of the files, they might provide access to data on a file server by acting as clients for a network protocol (e.g., NFS, SMB, or 9P clients), or they may be virtual and exist only as an access method for virtual data (e.g., procfs). More formally, a file system is a set of abstract data types that are implemented for the storage, hierarchical organization, manipulation, navigation, access, and retrieval of data. File systems share much in common with database technology, but it is debatable whether a file system can be classified Also known as on-disk structure, is the file system used by Hewlett-Packard's OpenVMS operating system, and also (in a simpler form) by the older RSX-11. It is a hierarchical file system, with support for access control lists, record-oriented I/O, remote network access, and file versioning. Files-11 is similar to, but significantly more advanced than, the filesystems used in previous Digital Equipment Corporation operating systems native OpenVMS file system is descended from older DEC operating systems, and is similar in many ways. A major difference is the layout of directories. These file systems all provided some form of rudimentary non-hierarchical directory structure, typically based on assigning one directory per user account. Under RSTS/E, each user account was represented by two numbers, a [project,programmer] pair, and had an associated directory. Special system files, such as program executables and the OS itself, were stored in the directory of a reserved system account. While this was suitable for PDP-11 systems, which possessed limited permanent storage capacity, the advent of VAX systems with very large hard drives (for the time) required a more flexible method of file storage—hierarchical directory layout in particular, the most notable improvement in ODS-2. Extensive use is made of the system of disk and tape handling originally developed within the ATMOL [36] program system, with the various files of integral data output to one or more direct access data sets. Such data sets are allocated to the program using logical file names (LFNs) in the range ED0, ED1, ..., ED19 and MT0, MT1, ..., MT19. In Table 1 we list those files used by the program, and define the default LFN associated with each file. A full description of data set management will not be given here: for the present it suffices to note the following; The Dumpfile, which in default is routed to ED3, is crucial to the program and controls all restart activities, This file is organised into variable length sections, with the user nominating various sections for data storage e.g., eigenvectors. The sections are characterised by integers (in the range 1 - 350), which are specified by the user through data input. The Scratchfile, which is routed to ED7, is used in all runs of the program as a file for house-keeping activities. While this data set need never be maintained across separate runs of the program, the user should be aware of the role of ED7 and avoid any attempts to use the data set in, for example, the re-routing of integral output. Each data file is block addressable (1 block = 512 words). In default output of each file commences at block 1 of the associated data set, and continues in uninterrupted fashion until output is complete. With certain exceptions, the user may control file usage in several ways; redefine the LFN to be associated with a given data file redefine the starting block for the file, allowing several files of data to be stored on the same data set partition output of a given file over several data sets, specifying the associated LFNs, and the starting and terminal blocks of each LFN. Th

Answered by Pammu , an ibibo Specialist, at 5:50 PM on November 17, 2007

In computing, a file system (often also written as filesystem) is a method for storing and organizing computer files and the data they contain to make it easy to find and access them. File systems may use a data storage device such as a hard disk or CD-ROM and involve maintaining the physical location of the files, they might provide access to data on a file server by acting as clients for a network protocol (e.g., NFS, SMB, or 9P clients), or they may be virtual and exist only as an access method for virtual data (e.g., procfs). More formally, a file system is a set of abstract data types that are implemented for the storage, hierarchical organization, manipulation, navigation, access, and retrieval of data. File systems share much in common with database technology, but it is debatable whether a file system can be classified as a special-purpose database (DBMS).[citation needed]

Answered by NIKs , an ibibo Advisor, at 5:47 PM on November 17, 2007