GATE CSE 2025 Session 1 Q51: Internal fragmentation for a 1 MB file with linked allocation
- Operating System
- 2 marks
- NAT
- No negative marking
Question
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, and . The amount of space in bytes that will be wasted due to internal fragmentation is ______. (Answer in integer)
Try it: numerical answer: type the value
Show answer and explanation
Answer: 65468 (official GATE 2025 final answer key)
Concept used: With linked allocation each block holds (block size − pointer size) bytes of data; the last block's unused part is internal fragmentation.
First step: Each block stores data bytes, so the file needs blocks.
Full step-by-step solution
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Source: official GATE 2025 Session 1 CS question paper and final answer key, organised by IIT Roorkee. Question paper · Answer key
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