Lesson26.Maintaining Local Volumes and Files

Lesson 26. Maintaining Local Volumes and Files

Time	This lesson takes approximately 1 hour to complete.
Goals	Describe the advantages and disadvantages of HFS Plus- and UFS-formatted volumes Use df and du to determine and monitor disk space usage Describe how Mac OS X handles aliases and symbolic links Monitor and troubleshoot file-system issues from the command-line interface using tools such as df, du, diskutil, drutil, and disktool Describe factors that influence disk space needs

Mac OS X supports several file-system types. In this lesson, the first of four focusing on file services, you will learn how the differences between these types can affect the experience of users and system administrators. For example, Mac OS X stores metadata differently on different file-system types, which affects the appearance and behavior of files.

Mac OS X has inherited features from UNIX, as well as from earlier versions of the operating system. Sometimes the UNIX features and Apple features are similar in purpose but different in behavior. This lesson covers symbolic links and aliases, which are also similar in purpose yet are different enough to possibly cause confusion.

Mac OS X keeps track of mounted volumes by means of disk arbitration, another topic focused on in this lesson, and you'll learn to update that information from the command line. You will also learn several command-line tools for monitoring and troubleshooting file systems.