  This paper provides evidence of a feature of Hard-Disk Drives (HDDs), that we
call File System Genome. Such a feature is originated by the areas where (on
the HDD) the file blocks are placed by the operating system during the
installation procedure. It appears from our study that the File System Genome
is a distinctive and unique feature of each indi- vidual HDD. In particular,
our extensive set of experiments shows that the installation of the same
operating system on two identical hardware configurations generates two
different File System Genomes. Further, the application of sound information
theory tools, such as min entropy, show that the differences between two File
System Genome are considerably relevant. The results provided in this paper
constitute the scientific basis for a number of applications in various fields
of information technology, such as forensic identification and security.
Finally, this work also paves the way for the application of the highlighted
technique to other classes of mass-storage devices (e.g. SSDs, Flash memories).
