Chapter 2 Part 4 Data management - File system 





Part 4: Data management - File system


Sectors

Boot sector
  • The boot sector contains information about the partition and
  • Block size, (size of the storage units, files are distributed across many clusters in order to use the storage space effectively)
  • Volume size (total size of the partition)
  • Position of the Master File Table (MFT)
  • Starts the boot loader of the operating system if the partition is bootable.
  • The boot loader is a program that is responsible for starting the operating system (in this case Windows).



File information sector
  • Saves Metadata of the stored files like:
    • Name, Permissions, Owner/Group, Time Stamps, …

  • Contains the addresses of the memory blocks (clusters) in which the data of the files are stored.
    • Blocks allow the effective storage of files on storage media
    • Blocks can be directly and indirectly adressed
    • This allows the storage ob big files
    • The maximum size of files depends on the size of the memory blocks



Data sector (file area)
  • The data sector is divided into blocks.
  • Contains the data of all files and directories.
  • The smallest unit with which NTFS stores data.
  • A block has a fixed size (typically 4 KB). Large files are distributed across several clusters.
  • A file always occupies at least one block.




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