Questions tagged [filesystems]

A file system is the specification of how files in a computer should be stored, named and organized. This tag should be used for generic file system questions. For specific file system questions (FAT, NTFS, ext4, ...) use the appropriate tag instead.

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Find out which process is locking a file or folder in Windows

How can I find out which process is locking a file or folder in Windows? For instance, when trying to delete a folder, Windows reports this: The action can't be completed because the folder is ...
leeand00's user avatar
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564 votes
3 answers
399k views

"directory junction" vs "directory symbolic link"?

In the context of NTFS: MKLINK [[/D] | [/H] | [/J]] Link Target /D Creates a directory symbolic link. Default is a file symbolic link. /H Creates a hard link instead of a symbolic link. /J ...
Pacerier's user avatar
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358 votes
11 answers
895k views

How to read ext4 partitions on Windows?

Is there a way to read ext4 partitions from Windows? If so, what can I do?
311 votes
9 answers
64k views

Why is there such a big difference between "Size" and "Size on disk"?

As you can see below, there is so much difference between the Size and Size on disk fields in my folder. Why is that? I know that Size on disk should be a little more than Size because of allocation ...
vfsoraki's user avatar
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212 votes
3 answers
57k views

Why do file URLs start with 3 slashes?

HTTP starts with two slashes. E.g. http://example.com. Same goes for FTP. E.g. ftp://example.com. However, file "URLs" start with three slashes. E.g. Reading a pdf file using chrome, the URL would ...
Pacerier's user avatar
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204 votes
9 answers
22k views

How far will you get with an 'rm -rf /' command?

I've often wondered how far the system will actually get if you run rm -rf /. I doubt the OS would be able to erase itself (?) Bonus Question: After the command has been executed, will rm have ...
n0pe's user avatar
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198 votes
5 answers
39k views

On my Windows machine, I had a folder with a name of four dots that acted like some kind of rabbit hole - how did that happen?

The folder name was listed in File Explorer with just plain four dots ..... When I tried opening it, I came into some kind of endless rabbit hole loop where I opened the exact same folder again and ...
Dirk Boer's user avatar
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175 votes
10 answers
48k views

How can a file size be zero?

Just something I ran into and couldn't think of a proper explanation. If I create an empty *.txt file on my PC and then look at its size, it shows 0. But how is that possible? I mean even if the file ...
Eugene S's user avatar
  • 2,138
159 votes
12 answers
286k views

Copy entire file system hierarchy from one drive to another

I would like to copy the entire file system hierarchy from one drive to another..i.e contents of each directory as well as regular files in Linux platform. Would be gratefull to know the best way to ...
Juggler's user avatar
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157 votes
6 answers
246k views

What is the difference between “Size” and “Size on disk?”

Looking at the properties for a Windows file I get two attributes, “Size” and “Size on disk,” and "Size on disk" is always larger. What do these two metrics mean?
Gavin Miller's user avatar
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155 votes
12 answers
259k views

How can you see the actual hard link by ls?

I run ln /a/A /b/B I would like to see at the folder a where the file A points to by ls.
Léo Léopold Hertz 준영's user avatar
141 votes
4 answers
157k views

Which linux filesystem works best with SSD

From wiki: The vital TRIM function is supported by the Linux OS starting with 2.6.33 kernel (available early 2010). However, support amongst various filesystems is still inconsistent or not ...
hbt's user avatar
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130 votes
9 answers
123k views

How much space to leave free on HDD or SSD?

In the informal (i.e. journalistic) technology press, and in online technology blogs and discussion forums, one commonly encounters anecdotal advice to leave some amount of space free on hard disk ...
user avatar
109 votes
14 answers
126k views

faster way to mount a remote file system than sshfs?

I have been using sshfs to work remotely, but it is really slow and annoying, particularly when I use eclipse on it. Is there any faster way to mount the remote file system locally? My no.1 priority ...
CuriousMind's user avatar
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95 votes
6 answers
33k views

Directory vs. Folder

Are both names synonyms or should one prefer one name over the other on different platforms?
Mike L.'s user avatar
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95 votes
11 answers
30k views

Cross-platform file system

I would like my external drives to be readable and writable from Linux, Mac OS X and Windows. FAT32 works, but the 4 GB file size limit is a showstopper these days. Are there any alternatives?
Console's user avatar
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90 votes
2 answers
344k views

Creating ext4 partition from console

I have a volume /dev/sda1 (1.2 TB) containing an NTFS partition using 0.6 TB space. I want to make an ext4 partition in the remaining 0.6 TB space. I have not tried anything yet because I don't want ...
Daniel W.'s user avatar
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78 votes
7 answers
46k views

Using UDF on a USB flash drive

After failing to copy a file bigger than 4G to my 8G USB flash drive, I formatted it as ext3. While this is working fine for me so far, it will cause problems if I want to use it to copy files to ...
CesarB's user avatar
  • 4,610
77 votes
4 answers
19k views

How can a file have been 'created' in 1641?

A few years ago, I stumbled on this file on our fileserver. And I wonder how can a file say it's been created in 1641? As far as I know, time on pc is defined by the number of seconds since Jan 1st, ...
Fredy31's user avatar
  • 1,135
73 votes
10 answers
152k views

How to find the largest directories or largest files? [duplicate]

Under Linux, I'm looking for a command to list the largest file and/or the largest directories under a directory.
Eric V's user avatar
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72 votes
3 answers
74k views

Do ext4 filesystems need to be defragmented?

Do ext4 filesystems need to be defragmented? If so, how do I defragment them? If not, could you post a simple explanation of why they do not need to be defragmented?
BenjiWiebe's user avatar
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71 votes
3 answers
4k views

Windows File is ludicrously huge and I cannot unzip it

I use an online file backup service (Backblaze) and recently got a new computer. Several files on my old computer were too large to move via my usb drive so I decided to download them from my backup ...
meed96's user avatar
  • 2,191
70 votes
2 answers
54k views

Permission to make symbolic links in Windows 7?

How can I grant a particular user the permission to create symlinks in Windows 7? I've searched through "Group Policy" and Google, but haven't found anything. On a side note, is there a way to ...
KarolDepka's user avatar
67 votes
3 answers
58k views

How to make a symlinked folder appear as a normal folder

I have two Dart applications I need to dockerize. These two apps use a shared source directory. Because Docker prevents adding files from folders outside the context directory (project/app1) I can't ...
zoechi's user avatar
  • 804
65 votes
6 answers
33k views

How do I remove a file named "NUL" on Windows?

I have a Windows XP box (NTFS filesystem) on which I found a file named NUL. I have not been able to remove this file in any usual way. The file appears to be owned by Administrator in the SYSTEM ...
Greg Mattes's user avatar
  • 3,372
65 votes
11 answers
134k views

Force delete files with a rather large name

I regularly use Node.js to manage dependencies for programs I write, no big deal. Today I ended up with a folder structure like this: Trying to delete any file was met with this error: The ...
Seiyria's user avatar
  • 1,718
64 votes
3 answers
136k views

How to split big files on MAC?

I have a 5 GB file on my MAC and can not copy it on flash memory or external hard formatted with FAT. How I can split it to some smaller files
Abbas Mousavi's user avatar
59 votes
15 answers
39k views

Hibernating and booting into another OS: will my filesystems be corrupted?

IMPORTANT If you came here looking for an answer to this question, please read all the answers below. There are some testimonials from people who have lost data doing this. If you plan to do this ...
Ryan C. Thompson's user avatar
58 votes
4 answers
7k views

Is a file system just the layout of folders?

I have used Windows since childhood, and when I hear the phrase "Windows filesystem" I think of directories (folders) within directories, a folder called SYSTEM, a folder called PROGRAM FILES etc. Is ...
P_Q's user avatar
  • 1,125
57 votes
2 answers
37k views

Cross-platform usable filesystem with large file support

What is the best filesystem to use cross-platform (Linux, Windows, OS X) which supports disk sizes of at least 2TB and file sizes >4GB? I'm planning to use it on a USB drive on different computers. ...
Zulakis's user avatar
  • 1,704
55 votes
4 answers
16k views

What are the various link types in Windows? How do I create them?

Is it possible to link two files or folders without having a different extension under Windows? I'm looking for functionality equivalent to the soft and hard links in Unix.
Cookie's user avatar
  • 713
55 votes
6 answers
10k views

Doesn't metadata occupy any size?

I put 4096 characters in a text file and save it. Since every character is 1 byte, the Size of the text file must be 4K bytes. As you see below that's OK: I connect my flash memory to my computer. ...
TheGoodUser's user avatar
  • 1,175
54 votes
1 answer
8k views

Why does Windows magically "couple" some files like this?

I saved a webpage in my browser as HTML. It saved not only a HTML file, but also a directory with various image files and whatnot. So I deleted the dir, since I only wanted the HTML file. Windows ...
A Rocque's user avatar
  • 549
53 votes
3 answers
10k views

Is there a way to make ext-filesystems use less space for themselves in Linux?

I have a bunch of external and internal HDDs that I use on a Linux system. I only have Linux systems, so using a Linux file-system would only make sense, right? However I'm currently using NTFS ...
confetti's user avatar
  • 2,455
52 votes
15 answers
7k views

How is the computer able to save things before it crashes?

I was under the impression that when a computer has crashed, something went wrong and it can't perform anymore. I was wondering how is the computer able to save things before it crashes? Is the ...
Pacerier's user avatar
  • 27.2k
52 votes
2 answers
7k views

In a symlink pointing to '127.0.1.1:+xxxxx', what is the plus character for?

On my Linux filesystem, a symlink points to 127.0.1.1:+xxxxx. Why the plus sign? Could there also be a minus? Why not just 127.0.1.1:xxxxx?
myMethod's user avatar
  • 621
52 votes
2 answers
99k views

cat /proc/meminfo what do all those numbers mean

In reading the man page on the free command in Linux. I found that is gets its info from /proc/meminfo. I understand a few of the entries, like MemTotal and MemFree. What do the rest mean. cat /...
nelaaro's user avatar
  • 13.5k
50 votes
4 answers
15k views

Have a file named ~ (tilde) in my home-directory

I just noticed that I have a file called ~ in my ~-directory. $ ls -la ~ ... -rw-r----- 1 x1 x1 733962240 Mar 1 17:55 ~ ... Any idea how I can mv or rm it?
scrrr's user avatar
  • 635
50 votes
3 answers
30k views

Get mac tar to stop putting ._* filenames in tar archives [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate: Why do I get files like ._foo in my tarball on OS X? I create autoconf scripts on a Mac. When tar runs, it puts all of these ._foobar names in the archive: libewf-20110312/...
vy32's user avatar
  • 3,361
48 votes
1 answer
36k views

Where should I put my script?

Say I have created a bash script, which will make an ftp user, mount some paths for that user, etc. Where in the file system it would be proper to place? It would be good to have some resource clearly ...
Pablo's user avatar
  • 4,755
46 votes
7 answers
287k views

List all files in all subfolders

In windows, is there any way to get a list of all files in a folder, including all the files within all the subfolders?
Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusk's user avatar
44 votes
1 answer
10k views

Creation of 1.3 GB file takes only 1 second. How?

I have folder which contains over 200 files and has size of over 1.3 GB: I use Gizmo Drive software to create an .iso file from that folder. The interesting thing is it takes only 1 or 2 seconds! I ...
ramazan polat's user avatar
42 votes
4 answers
16k views

Which Name Is Correct, exFAT or FAT64?

I conducted a quick Google search and realized that some people are referring to exFAT as FAT64. Is exFAT just another name for FAT64?
user avatar
42 votes
5 answers
49k views

What is the recommended directory to store website content? [closed]

When I first started programming for the web and I wanted to create a new project I was always taught to create a directory in /var/www/. However in a lot of tutorials I read people tend to create a ...
Pattle's user avatar
  • 523
42 votes
5 answers
104k views

Linux – cannot remove owned file with 777 permissions

I've couple of files that I cannot remove using rf -Rf command. I'm the owner of those file and the group assigned to those files is also a group my user is in. What's even weirder is that I can edit ...
RaYell's user avatar
  • 1,154
42 votes
6 answers
67k views

How do you make Windows 7 fully case-sensitive with respect to the filesystem?

I want to make Windows 7 case-sensitive when it reads/writes anything on the hard drive (the C drive, or any other NTFS drive). I found a video via google that says to change the registry key ...
trusktr's user avatar
  • 1,644
42 votes
11 answers
73k views

How to monitor a folder for changes, and execute a command if it does, on Windows?

There are similar questions for Linux and Mac, but I'm after a Windows solution here. The problem is as follows: I want to write several (js) script files in a folder, and have a program monitor ...
Camilo Martin's user avatar
42 votes
5 answers
163k views

How to mount an Android smartphone as a drive in Windows?

So some smartphones are mounted as.. I don't even know how to call it.. a device, see the screenshot below. The problem is this is no drive, so I can't go there in cmd (can I?) and do other stuff. (...
YakovL's user avatar
  • 819
41 votes
7 answers
158k views

VBox Guest Additions ISO can't be mounted because of VERR_PDM_MEDIA_LOCKED

I am trying to run the command sudo mount -t vboxsf SharedUbuntuWindows SharedUbuntuWindows but I get the error unknown filesystem type 'vboxsf' on my guest Ubuntu machine. I am following these ...
icu222much's user avatar
41 votes
3 answers
206k views

mount gives unknown filesystem type 'vboxsf'

I'm getting an error message mount: unknown filesystem type 'vboxsf' when trying to mount a shared folder on my guest Ubuntu machine. I have a Windows 7 machine running 4.1.22V Oracle VM VirtualBox. ...
Mike's user avatar
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