Does the whole Inode table get loaded in the main memory

Question

I know that the Inode table is stored on the HardDrive. But when we turn on the system, does the whole table gets loaded in the main memory or just a part of it. And which part?

Answer 1

Inodes aren't loaded from disk until they are actually needed, i.e. when doing file access. Only the inodes that describe data that's currently being accessed are loaded. They'll stay in memory for a while (say, in the Linux VFS inode cache). But they're only loaded as necessary.