bdev

bdev refers to a block device in computing. A block device is a type of computer storage that handles data in continuous chunks called blocks, rather than as a stream of bytes. This is in contrast to character devices, which handle data as a stream. Examples of block devices include hard disk drives, solid-state drives, USB flash drives, and CD-ROM drives. Operating systems interact with block devices through a block device driver, which abstracts the underlying hardware details. This allows the operating system to present a consistent interface to file systems and other applications that need to access storage. The size of a block can vary, but common sizes are 512 bytes or 4 kilobytes. When data is read or written to a block device, it is done in units of these blocks. This block-based access is efficient for random access operations, which are common in file system operations and database management.