Glossary terms from course 3, module 4

Command line mode: When you are able to run commands while still in your current shell

Data: Actual content of a file

Data buffer: A region of RAM that’s used to temporarily store data while it’s being moved around

Defragmentation: A process of taking all the files stored on a given disk and reorganizing them into neighboring locations

Disk Management utility: Native tool for Windows that helps with managing disk space

File record number: The index of the files entry in the MFT

File system: Used to keep track of files and file storage on a disk

Hard link: When created in NTFS, an entry is added to the MFT that points to the linked file record number, not the name of the file. This means the file name of the target can change and the hard link will still point to it

Inode: A file structure for metadata and files

Interactive mode: When the parted tool launches you into a separate program

Master boot record (MBR): a traditional partition table within a storage disk that lets you have volume sizes of 2 terabytes or less and is mostly used in the Windows OS

Master file table (MFT): A way NTFS stores and represents the files you’re working with on your operating system

Memory manager: A Windows OS program that helps manage virtual memory 

Metadata: Tells us everything we need to know about a file, including who created it, when it was last modified, who has access to it, and what type of file it is.

Mounting: Making a file or hard disk accessible to the computer

Partition table: How the disk is partitioned on an OS

Shortcut: An entry in the MFT that has a reference to some destination, so that when you open it up, you get taken to that destination

Softlinks: A shortcut in Linux, that allows us to link to another file using a file name

Swap space: The allocated space where the virtual memory is stored on the hard drive when the amount of physical memory space is used up or full

Symbolic links: Work similarly to shortcuts, but at the file system level. The key difference is that the operating system treats them like substitutes for the file they’re linked to in almost every meaningful way

System properties: A control panel applet that allows you to edit the size and number and location of paging files

Trim: A command to delete unused data blocks so the space can be used for the computer’s storage needs

UEFI: A new standard for BIOS

UUID: Universally Unique ID

Virtual memory: A combination of hard drive space and RAM that acts like memory which our processes can use

Volume: A format for a filesystem on a partition