Answer to Question #262557 in Computer Networks for ricksanchez

Question

Assume that a disk has 512 tracks, with each track having 128 sectors and each sector is of size 8 M bits. The cluster size in this system can be assumed to be as 8 sectors. A file having the name assignmentofsemester1.txt is of size 512 MB. Assume that disk has 128 free - continuous clusters. How can this file be allotted space on the disk? Also show the content of FAT after the space allocation to this file. You may make suitable assumptions.

Answer 1

File space allocation is a method of distributing data across the operating system's physical storage space. The kernel allocates disk space for a file or directory in logical blocks. Logical blocks represent the division of the contents of a file or directory into blocks of 4096 bytes.The default fragment size is 4096 bytes. You can specify a smaller fragment size using the mkfs command during file system creation. The allowed fragment sizes are 512, 1024, 2048, and 4096 bytes. Only one fragment size can be used in the file system.The file system uses the index table stored on the device to define the data storage area strings associated with the file, the File Allocation Table (FAT). FAT is statically allocated at format time. The table is a linked list of entries for each cluster, a contiguous disk storage area.