Dec. 5, 2011
12:57 p.m.
Is there any document which explain what "backing device" used for?
Have a look at the initramfs doc to get brief idea: http://www.mjmwired.net/kernel/Documentation/filesystems/ramfs-rootfs-initra...
From what I've understood, is that backing device/store is the device onto which _committed_ data is actually written. This might be a block device like a hard-disk, flash mem or even the RAM (used by in-memory file-systems).
CMIIW. HTH, -mandeep