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.
3,293
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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 ...
569
votes
3
answers
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"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 ...
363
votes
11
answers
923k
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How to read ext4 partitions on Windows?
Is there a way to read ext4 partitions from Windows? If so, what can I do?
310
votes
9
answers
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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 ...
216
votes
3
answers
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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 ...
203
votes
9
answers
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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 ...
197
votes
5
answers
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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 ...
175
votes
10
answers
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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 ...
163
votes
12
answers
292k
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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 ...
158
votes
12
answers
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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.
158
votes
6
answers
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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?
140
votes
4
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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 ...
130
votes
9
answers
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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 ...
109
votes
14
answers
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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 ...
95
votes
6
answers
33k
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Directory vs. Folder
Are both names synonyms or should one prefer one name over the other on different platforms?
95
votes
11
answers
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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?
90
votes
2
answers
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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 ...
79
votes
7
answers
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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 ...
77
votes
10
answers
168k
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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.
77
votes
4
answers
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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, ...
72
votes
3
answers
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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?
71
votes
3
answers
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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 ...
70
votes
2
answers
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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 ...
67
votes
13
answers
64k
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Linux: Compare Directory Structure Without Comparing Files
What is the best and simplest way to compare two directory structures without actually comparing the data in files? This works fine:
diff -qr dir1 dir2_
But it's really slow because it's comparing ...
67
votes
3
answers
59k
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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 ...
66
votes
6
answers
34k
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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 ...
65
votes
11
answers
134k
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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 ...
64
votes
3
answers
139k
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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
59
votes
15
answers
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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 ...
58
votes
4
answers
7k
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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 ...
58
votes
2
answers
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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.
...
56
votes
6
answers
10k
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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. ...
55
votes
4
answers
16k
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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.
54
votes
1
answer
8k
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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 ...
53
votes
3
answers
10k
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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 ...
52
votes
15
answers
8k
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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 ...
52
votes
2
answers
7k
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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?
52
votes
2
answers
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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 /...
51
votes
3
answers
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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/...
50
votes
4
answers
15k
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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?
48
votes
1
answer
37k
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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 ...
46
votes
7
answers
293k
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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?
45
votes
5
answers
170k
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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.
(...
44
votes
1
answer
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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 ...
43
votes
5
answers
51k
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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 ...
42
votes
4
answers
16k
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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?
42
votes
5
answers
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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 ...
42
votes
6
answers
67k
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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
...
42
votes
10
answers
74k
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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 ...
41
votes
7
answers
162k
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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 ...