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SO AllocationMethods

The document discusses various file allocation methods including contiguous, linked, FAT, and indexed allocation. Contiguous allocation offers simplicity and performance but suffers from fragmentation issues, while linked allocation eliminates external fragmentation but lacks direct access. Indexed allocation allows for direct access and dynamic allocation but requires an index table for each file, introducing some overhead.

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8 views3 pages

SO AllocationMethods

The document discusses various file allocation methods including contiguous, linked, FAT, and indexed allocation. Contiguous allocation offers simplicity and performance but suffers from fragmentation issues, while linked allocation eliminates external fragmentation but lacks direct access. Indexed allocation allows for direct access and dynamic allocation but requires an index table for each file, introducing some overhead.

Uploaded by

roman8casas
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Allocation Methods

Contiguous allocation – each file occupies set of contiguous blocks


Best performance in most cases.
Simple – only starting location (block #) and length (number of blocks) are required.
Problems include finding space for file, knowing file size, need for compaction off-line
(downtime) or on-line.
External and internal fragmentation.
Linked allocation – each file a linked list of
blocks
Each block contains pointer to next block.
No external fragmentation.
Needs compaction.
No direct/random access

int fd=open (f, RD_ONLY);


…
byte 1500
lseek(fd, 1500, 0);
read (fd, buffer, 500);
input/output offset
…
byte 0
file “f”

FAT (File Allocation Table) variation


Beginning of volume has table, indexed by block number.
The FAT is cacheable (maintained in main memory -> it
allows direct access).
New block allocation simple.
Indexed Allocation - Each file has its own index block(s) of pointers to its data blocks
Need index table for each file.
Direct access.
Dynamic access without external fragmentation, but have overhead of index block.

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