Any file storage system, whether it’s a CD-ROM, a hard drive or a USB stick, is essentially a device for storing a long chain of 1s and 0s. When we interact with it, however, we don’t see this; instead, we see files, directories, symbolic links and so on. The software that makes the translation for us is called a file system.
There’s one step in between, though, and it’s often overlooked. A particular file system need not take up the whole of the disk it lives on. Instead, the disk may be split up into individual sections, called partitions, each of which can have its own file system – or none at all. The disk keeps track of its partitions through its partition table, which tells it how many partitions…
