Managing Files in Computer Systems

Files management is one of the most reliable feature of any Operating system in the Computing World. The OS manages files and folders and their paths so that we can easily access them when we have huge data. Managing files can have three of the following major parts.

• Managing File Storage
• Manipulating files and folders
• Protecting files

Let us have look on each of them one by one.

Managing File Storage

Different files are stored in different locations on the hard drives of any system. In todays Operating systems, these files can be placed and accessed easily. Managing file storage can have the following sections.

• Folders and Paths: Folders and paths of the folders are arranged in a hierarchical way in which root drive like drive ‘C’ is at top level and then it has folders and sub folders at the middle level and our desired file/folder at low/current level. In windows OS, the path of the folder is shown in the address bar.
• File Management Tools: Every OS has its own tool for managing files like Windows has “File Explorer Utility tool”, MacOS has “finder utility tool” and Linux has “files utility tool” for file management.
• File Structure: File structure looks like a hierarchical tree. In windows environment, it has navigation pane, Quick Access, Recently used folders etc for quickly accessing the folder or file.
• File/folder Properties: It actually dictates the Metadata which is ‘data about data’. In the properties of any file, it includes basic file attributes like (read only, hidden, Archive) and Advanced file attributes like(indexing, compression, encryption). It also includes file size, date created, modified, file name and many more detailed properties.

Figure: File properties in windows

Manipulating File

Manipulating file means to do some actions on the data files which we create in various applications. For example, we might need to edit, rename, copy, move, or even delete a file. The following points summarize the most common file manipulations in Windows.

• Opening, Editing and Saving files
• Moving, Cutting, Copying
• Deleting, Restoring
• Renaming and Creating Shortcuts
• Selecting multiple files
• Searching, Sorting
• Displaying files and changing views

The following figure shows simple manipulating of a file.

Figure: Manipulating File in windows

Protecting Files

Protecting files is necessary in any computer system. We can protect our files from snooping by other people who use our computer. We secure our files from unauthorized users and provide protection for the data which contains confidential informations. There are basically two ways of protecting files. One is through files and folders permission in properties section and the other is Backing up and Restoring Data through different approach.

1. Files and Folders Permission

To set a folder’s permissions, right-click the folder in File Explorer, choose Properties, and then click the Security tab. On the Security tab, we can view permissions for specific users or groups of users. The Administrators group, for example, includes all user accounts with Administrator permissions. Similarly, we can edit their privileges through the clicking edit icon. The following figure shows the folder’s permission in windows environment.

Figure: Folder’s permission through Security Tab in windows

2. Backing Up and Restoring Data

Backing up means to store data on the back end so that if we lose our data then we can easily restore our data from the back end. The back end can be external hard drives, cloud storage and many more. There are two ways which are mostly used for backing and restoring data in todays era and these are:

• Via Backup utility Softwares: Softwares like storagecraft, shadowprotect, backup utility in windows 7, file history in windows8 and later are used for backing up data and then restoring it. Similarly, Online storage like One drive, Google Drive etc are also used for backing up data and then restoring it when we lost it.
• Via manually copying our data to external drives: Using external drives like hard drives, optical disks, solid state flash memories etc to store our data for back up.

The following figures shows Online storages and external drives as a back up media.

Figure: Online storages as back up media

Figure: External Hard drive for Back up Storage

This was all about the managing files and folders in any operating system and I hope you have found it worthy.

Thanks for Reading…!!!