Block suballocation is a feature of some computer file systems which allows large blocks or allocation units to be used while making efficient use of "slack" space at the end of large files, space which would otherwise be lost for other use to internal fragmentation.
In file systems that don't support fragments, this feature is also called tail merging or tail packing because it is commonly done by packing the "tail", or last partial block, of multiple files into a single block.
Read more about Block Suballocation: Rationale, Suballocation Schemes, Efficiency
Famous quotes containing the word block:
“When the landscape buckles and jerks around, when a dust column of debris rises from the collapse of a block of buildings on bodies that could have been your own, when the staves of history fall awry and the barrel of time bursts apart, some turn to prayer, some to poetry: words in the memory, a stained book carried close to the body, the notebook scribbled by hand—a center of gravity.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)