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In computing, a volume is a logical grouping of files and folders that is formatted with a file system, such as a hard drive or USB flash drive. It is a user-accessible storage space that the operating system can read from and write to, often represented by a drive letter (e.g., "C:"). Volumes can be physical (a single drive or partition) or logical (created from parts of multiple physical drives).

Key characteristics of a volume

Logical vs. Physical: A volume is a logical container, while the physical storage is the actual hardware like a hard disk drive (HDD) or solid-state drive (SSD). A single physical disk can be split into multiple volumes, or multiple physical disks can be combined to form a single logical volume.

File System: A volume is formatted with a file system (like NTFS, FAT32, or ext4), which is what allows it to store and organize data in a structured way, including folders and files.

Drive Letter: Operating systems often assign a drive letter or mount point to a volume, making it easy to access, such as the "C:" drive on many Windows systems.

Label: A volume can be given a user-friendly name, called a volume label, for easier identification.

Types: There are different types of volumes, including simple volumes, striped volumes (for improved performance but no redundancy), and mirrored or RAID volumes (for fault tolerance).