A raw disk is just a collection of sectors — the OS needs to organize it into usable storage: divide it into partitions, create file systems, and handle errors.
Disk management encompasses partitioning (dividing disks), formatting (creating file systems), and error handling (bad block management).
- Partitioning: Divide disk into logical sections, each can have different file system
- Formatting: Create file system structures (superblock, inodes, bitmaps)
- Bad Block Management: Detect and remap damaged sectors
- Free Space Management: Track unused sectors for new allocations
- Partition table types: MBR (old, 2TB limit) vs GPT (modern, no practical limit)
- Formatting writes file system metadata (superblock, inode tables)
- Bad blocks detected at format time or during runtime
- File system choice affects performance and features
- Built from: Disk Structure, Disk Scheduling
- Builds into: Swap Space, RAID
- Related: Partitioning, Formatting, Bb Block Management
- Contrasts with: O System (higher-level abstraction)
- Formatting erases all data — always backup first
- Some file systems (ZFS) do their own bad block management
- Partition alignment matters for SSD performance (4K alignment)