What is an Inode?
Though it is mainly associated with the Linux platform, an inode could also refer to a file system on various Unix-like operating systems. Its purpose is to store all information about a particular file with the exception of its name and actual data. Whereas a file only contains its own content and a directory only contains the name of user files, an inode contains metadata, which is essentially all the other information relative to the file. This includes the size of the file, its physical location, its access permissions and timestamps among other details. This type of structure enables data to be stored and used more efficiently. The inode concept is particularly useful for recovering damaged file systems. If parts of the file system are lost, the inode can be used to find them within the partition on which they once existed.
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