Linux – How to Get Hard Disk Information from /proc and /sys

When handling data, much of the time, the key is to keep only data that's relevant to your particular set of tasks, and nothing more. Much of the data that's exposed under /proc is done so for a singular purpose, i.e. a tool that needs to have visibility to it etc.

Given the comments I would assume 3 things about /proc/[number]/stat:

1. The data being displayed here is what's relevant to functions and data objects within /usr/src/linux/fs/proc/array.c.
2. That data is also what's relevant to ps.
3. Looking through the data that's here you'll notice that there is nothing here that's user specific. It's all geared towards processes.

NOTE: for #2. this is the process data that's relevant to ps. The processes owned by a user are kept in a different data structure within the Kernel elsewhere.

On the otherhand, with /proc/[number]/status, the comment pretty much tells you what this data is geared towards, a human reading it. So it's likely that this node within the Kernel serves no other purpose, from a tools perspective, then to collate data from other sources into a single place for the user to consume it.

Additional evidence

If you need more proof of this, look to this question I answered a while ago, titled: /proc/meminfo MemTotal =?. This question covered /proc/meminfo and it was a similar issue here too. Some of the data is exposed during the Kernel boot-up under dmesg log output. However that data, though memory related and perceived as relevant to /proc/meminfo was absent, again because it wasn't useful to:

1. the target audience of tools that would be using /proc/meminfo
2. Not relevant to the Kernel internal functions, methods, and data structures that made use of the data in /proc/meminfo.

References

• The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7 - ps command