I've had to do a port of an SDCard program from Mac/Linux over to Windows, and I've found that the online community (stackoverflow,windowscentral,etc.) as well as Microsoft's own documentation is inadequate/unstructured when it comes to definitions of different file system operations and storage devices. Either they use terms interchangeably or do not provide precise enough definitions. I have tried using Windows' documentation for diskpart/disk management as well as some of their manufacturer specs for clarification, but would love to try and ask this again here.
Here are my new, working definitions of many of the common file system and storage terms for Windows, please let me know if any of them should be altered or where they are incorrect. Please cite credible sources when possible:
Hard Disk - Set of Stacked Platters Which Store Data Electromagnetically Hard Disk Drive - Device controlling the positioning, reading, and writing of the hard disk Partitions - logical regions on a hard disk created whan a user formats a hard disk to use as a basic disk
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/fileio/basic-and-dynamic-disks Basic Disk - A disk that contains partitions which are formatted with a file system, thus becoming a volume for file storage Volumes - The highest level of organization of a filesystem. Volumes contain at least one partition
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/disk-management/assign-a-mount-point-folder-path-to-a-drive Mount - To make a drive accessible from another volume (ASSIGNING A LETTER)
https://www.windowscentral.com/how-mount-drive-windows-10#unmount_drive_windows10 , https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/158668-how-mount-unmount-drive-volume-windows.html , https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/windows/it-pro/windows-server-2012-r2-and-2012/cc731985(v=ws.11)
Unmount - To dismount the basic volume, when all drive letters and mount points have been removed from the volume, and to take the volume offline, making it unmountable (COMBINATION OF DISMOUNT AND OFFLINE OPERATIONS)
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/winioctl/ni-winioctl-fsctl_dismount_volume Dismount - To remove awareness of a volume to an operating system (will additionally have no open files). A volume is dismounted when all drive letters and mount points are removed from it. We dismount to format, and format cannot occur on an offline volume, so dismount and offline must be separate actions
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/winioctl/ni-winioctl-ioctl_volume_offline Offline - When a volume is offline, all read, write, and IOCTL requests fail. Requests sent to the volume are not honored. Taking a dismounted volume offline prevents the volume from being mounted again until it is online. MAKES THE VOLUME NOT MOUNTABLE
<https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/automount > Automount - Automatically mount new basic and dynamic volumes that are added to the system and assign them drive letters.
The most critical clarification is needed at mount,unmount,dismount,offline,online in my opinion. Would love to pin this down.
