Hey you computer nerds! How come I keep getting fatter and skinnier?

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My "fat.db" file in my Netscape cache changes size quite often, getting fatter and skinnier. It does not seem to have any relationship to the space used up by my cache files, as I often delete them.

Do you know what is going on with my fat?

-- Oprah Winfrey (I get fat @ I get skinny. then I get fat again), June 10, 2001

Answers

"File Allocation Table (FAT) -- A table maintained by DOS or OS/2 that lists all the clusters available on a disk. The FAT includes the location of each cluster, as well as whether it is in use, available for use, or damaged in some way and therefore unavailable. FAT also keeps track of which pieces belong to which file." (glossary, page 831)

"To make it easier for the operating system to manage the storage space, the information encoded on the drive is written to groups of sectors known as clusters. A cluster is made up of up to 64 sectors grouped together (the actual number of sectors included in a cluster varies with the size of the hard disk). When the operating system is storing information, it writes it to a particular cluster instead of to an actual sector because it's more efficient for the operating system to keep track of clusters than sectors. The file that contains the information about where the tracks and sectors on the disk are located is known as the file allocation table, or FAT. It is contained in the outermost track (track 0) of the disk." (page 160)

From the book "A+ Complete Study Guide" Second edition by David Groth and Dan Newland

In answer to your question, FAT is dynamic.

-- helen (somebody@double.check.my.answer), June 10, 2001.


Not quite helen. The question is about a Netscape file, fat.db, not the operating system fat.

And the OS fat is not dynamic. It takes a fixed amount of space at the beginning of the disk. The size does vary depending on the size of the disk. But once established, when the disk is formatted, the size doesn't change.

-- (not.os.fat@fat.db), June 11, 2001.


I'll just go back to mucking out the goat pen.

-- helen (shovel@han.d), June 11, 2001.

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