Sams Teach Yourself FreeBSD® in 24 Hours

Hour 8. Storage Systems and Backup Utilities

Every operating system in use today is what was once referred to as a Disk Operating System, or DOS. The idea is that unlike some operating systems, which worked entirely from self-contained instructions on silicon chips (in ROM or firmware), a DOS allowed the user to swap in new instructions on disks—which at the time were either eight-inch floppy disks in flimsy plastic jackets, or else “hard disks” in sealed containers with much larger capacity. The disks could contain new programs to run, data for those programs to work with, or even other disk-based operating systems to run the programs. The key was versatility and expandability beyond what was sealed into a computer's case. Just swap in new ...