Question: File System

1. Give the roles of file system.

2. What are the different file access methods that can offer a file system?

3. What are the basic strategies used by a file system to assign storage blocks to a file?

4. What is the major problem with contiguous allocation? How can we solve it?

Consider a UNIX file system with 12 direct pointers, 1 indirect pointer, 1 double-indirect pointer, and 1 triple-indirect pointer in the i-node. Assume that disk blocks are 8K bytes and that each pointer to a disk block requires 4 bytes.

5. Calculate the number of pointers / block.

6. What is the largest possible file that can be supported with this design?

a. Show the expression to get full credit (i.e., you shouldn't calculate the final numeric answer).

b. Draw a figure to illustrate the case of the larger file.