Computer Sciences > GATE 2025 SET-1 > File Systems
A disk of size 512M bytes is divided into blocks of 64K bytes. A file is stored in the disk using linked allocation. In linked allocation, each data block reserves 4 bytes to store the pointer to the next data block. The link part of the last data block contains a NULL pointer (also of 4 bytes). Suppose a file of 1M bytes needs to be stored in the disk. Assume, 1K=210 and 1M=220. The amount of space in bytes that will be wasted due to internal fragmentation is ______ (Answer in integer)

Correct : 65468

Block size = 64K = 65536 bytes. Each block uses 4 bytes for a pointer, leaving 65532 bytes of usable data per block.
File size = 1M = 1048576 bytes. Number of blocks needed = ⌈1048576 ÷ 65532⌉ = ⌈16.0009...⌉ = 17 blocks.
Verification: 16 full blocks hold 16 × 65532 = 1048512 bytes of data. The remaining 1048576 − 1048512 = 64 bytes go into the 17th block.
In the 17th block: 64 bytes of file data + 4 bytes for the NULL pointer = 68 bytes used. The rest of the block = 65536 − 68 = 65468 bytes is completely empty and wasted — this is the internal fragmentation.
Correct answer: 65468

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linked allocation internal fragmentation GATE 2025 GATE CS 2025 Set-1 Q51 1M file 64K block linked allocation GATE wasted space internal fragmentation GATE file systems operating systems GATE 2025 disk allocation pointer overhead GATE

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