Talk:Block (data storage)

What does blocking "facilitate"?

Blocking is used to facilitate the handling of the data-stream by the computer program receiving the data. Since when does blocking make it easier to write software? It is a performance optimization, it does not make programming easier, quite the opposite, since data cannot be accessed as fine-grained as needed, but only in fixed chunk sizes. I would suggest to either remove this phrase, or clarify what exactly is "faciliatated". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.219.64.64 (talk) 08:37, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Makes sense. I changed this. What it does is speed up I/O by reducing the number of seeks and interrupts. It doesn't do anything for the aplication since it's usually handled transparently by the OS. It also can save space on external media. Peter Flass (talk) 12:13, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Average Size of Slack Space

> This will create slack space, which averages half a block per file.

This line is specious. It assumes an even distribution of file-sizes from one end of the distribution (modulus block-size) to the other. This is not guaranteed, even when all files on all systems in the world are considered. For example, it could be that of all files, a disproportionately large number have an even number of bytes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Synetech (talk • contribs) 06:30, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Analogy to framing or paging

Is there any value in adding a description of blocking as being analogous to framing or to Pages in logical address space? Stephen Charles Thompson (talk) 18:10, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Optimal blocksize?

Setting a large block size wastes disk space but does it have a benefit? Having a small block size on the other hand saves disk space but is there a drawback? 212.226.64.54 (talk) 16:06, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes in both cases. I added a statement about blocking sometimes reducing external storage requirements. Also blocking reduces the number of I/O operations to process a file. Peter Flass (talk) 14:43, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Accuracy, block versus file

I disagree with the statement that "Most file systems are based on a block device". Block storage is found only on storage area networks (SANs), accessible by iCSCI or Fibre Channel. By far there are more file systems that use file storage, typically Network Attached Storage, found in personal computers and mobile devices. It seems that this article could also use a comparison between block and file level storage. Thoughts? Timtempleton (talk) 21:39, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

@Timtempleton: I think you're very confused about the terms. Any old hard drive, flash memory device or SSD is block storage. There's no such dichotomy as "file storage or block storage". Every file system -- including block-based FSes -- export the abstraction of files to the user, otherwise they wouldn't be called file systems.

I don't see how you can claim that personal computers and mobile devices use network attached storage; their storage is mostly directly attached. -- intgr [talk] 23:08, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

Sorry - should have clarified as block level storage vs. file level storage. I was going off of this article. [[1]] Not an expert in file level storage myself - just trying to understand it better, and what I read on techrepublic.com seemed different (and clearer) than what the Wikipedia article was saying. Timtempleton (talk) 03:53, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

And I did get mixed up on the NAS - was thinking NTFS - mounting drives. Brain fart. Timtempleton (talk) 23:26, 25 May 2017 (UTC)