Phase 5: Storage & I/O
Storage is where your data lives permanently. Understanding how Linux abstracts hardware into devices, how it caches disk reads to speed things up, and how to build reliable storage with LVM and RAID gives you the tools to design and troubleshoot any storage system.
What You'll Learn
1. Block vs Character Devices
How Linux represents hardware as files, major/minor numbers.
Intermediate2. I/O Scheduler
How the kernel orders disk requests for performance.
Intermediate3. Buffer & Page Cache
How Linux caches disk data in RAM — and when to drop it.
Intermediate4. fsync & fdatasync
Durability guarantees — how to ensure data survives a crash.
Intermediate5. LVM Explained
Flexible disk management: physical volumes, volume groups, logical volumes.
Intermediate6. RAID in Linux
RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10 — software RAID with mdadm.
Intermediate7. /sys Filesystem
How Linux exposes hardware configuration as files.
Intermediate8. udev Explained
How Linux auto-detects hardware and creates /dev entries.
IntermediateFrequently Asked Questions
What will I learn here?
This page covers the core concepts and techniques you need to understand the topic and progress confidently to the next lesson.
How should I use this page?
Start with the overview, then follow the section links to deepen your understanding. Use the table of contents on the right to jump to specific sections.
What should I read next?
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