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I like to go back to early usage on these things, and for this case it
seemed that the Version 6 Unix docs and source code seemed appropriate.
I also checked the _Lions' Commentary on UNIX 6th Edition_ (as it has the
source code) and "The UNIX Time-Sharing System" by Ritchie and Thompson
(authors of UNIX) from The Bell System Technical Journal Vol 57 No. 6
part 2, July-August 1978.
The Version 6 source code shows 'file system' as two words. The BSTJ
article uses 'file system'.
The documentation for file systems in Version 6 (and through to Linux and
BSD) is "filesystem".
MULTICS, on which UNIX was based, used the term 'file system' -- at least
in the paper on its file system by Daley and Neumann at the 1965 Fall
Jount Computer Conference.
QDOS (on which MS-DOS was based) was not written until 1980 so any use by
MS of the terms would be subseqent to those by UNIX an MUTICS.
I don't know if the OED has an entry or not.
So, it appears that despite very common use, 'filesystem' is probably
less appropriate than 'file system', but usage seems to be moving that
way. Maybe the use is influenced by common words like 'subsystem' and
'ecosystem'. After 20 years of using filesystem in documentation and in
training materials, I may have to change..
--john
--
John McDermott
Writer, Educator, Consultant
jjm -at- jkintl -dot- com http://www.jkintl.com
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