What is a File Management System? – Definition from Trenovision

File Management System

An interface for operating system for storing and organizing data on the storage device and make it easy to find and access them​ and it is used to

  • Stores user’s data​
  • Retrieves user’s data​
  • Hierarchical presentation​
  • Controls access, permissions​

Different type of FS

Media

  • Disk
    • ext2, ext3 (Linux)
    • ufs (Unix)
    • FAT, NTFS (Windows)
  • Optical
    • CDROM FS (also ISO)
  • Memory
    • tmpfs
  • Tape
    • tar

Network 

  • NFS (Unix)
  • CIFS (Windows)

Special

  • procfs – /proc
  • sysfs   – /sys

How is it used?

  • Create the FS
    • mkfs
    • device, size, options
  • Mount the FS
    • mount
    • FS device, mount point, options
  • Use the FS
    • create, open, read, write, close, delete
    • truncate, append, move, rename
    • owner, group, permissions, ACL
    • extended attributes
  • Unmount the FS

Advantages

Advantages of FS

  • Hides media dependency, direct media access
  • Hides space allocations, usage, freeing
  • Multiple users can share storage efficiently
  • Simultaneous usage of storage