Many file systems on Linux and UNIX systems must be manually mounted and unmounted.
When a file system is mounted, you can read and write to the file system. When you finish working with a file system, you should unmount the file system.
You must unmount removable drives, such as floppy disks and Zip disks, before you remove the media, because Linux and UNIX systems do not always write the changes immediately. Such systems typically buffer the changes to the disk, to improve the speed of the system.
Partitions on fixed drives, such as your hard drive, are typically mounted automatically when your computer boots, and unmounted when your computer shuts down. Removable media must be mounted and unmounted manually, for example by using the .
Some systems may also automatically mount some removable media (such as USB and IEEE1394 disks), these devices may also come up in the  so that you can unmount them when you are finished, and provide a visual indication that they are present.
