Device

Devices are found in the /dev directory. There are several types of devices:


 * block devices -- A.K.A "cooked" devices. Data stored on the device is typically accessed in groups, instead of one byte at a time.  Hard drives, tape systems, and other mass-storage devices are almost always block devices.  Data is more or less random-access (although performance may suffer greatly, as in the case of a tape).
 * character devices -- Data is usually managed in a stream. Serial, audio, and most other non-storage devices fall into this category.
 * sockets -- File-like interfaces to network resources that open a port
 * pipes -- A "named pipe." See FIFO

[snip] brw-rw 1 root disk      1,   9 2005-12-27 14:14 ram9 crw-rw-rw- 1 root root      1,   8 2005-12-27 14:14 random [snip]
 * 1) ls -la /dev/

You can see the b and c for block vs character. You can use mknod to create a block or charcter device.