Every computer user knows storage devices need to be formatted with the file system before being used for storing data. Now what is file system? It is a systematic way to organize data and information on a hard disk. Every operating system has its own file system, example, Microsoft introduced FAT and NTFS for its Windows operating system. In this blog, I will elaborate NTFS, its different versions, and why NTFS is far better than its precursor FAT.
NTFS File systems are designed to perform quickly. If user is formatting volume with NTFS file system it creates several files automatically like $mft (Master File Table), $bitmap, $log file & others, which helps to work faster as well as resolve disk errors automatically without having to run Check Disk utility.
Overview of NTFS File System
- NTFS is the primary file system in various windows OS such as Win 10/8/7/vista/XP/2000 and Windows NT operating system.
- NTFS file system is designed on ACLs (access control list), file system permission, which enables administartor to define what user is going to access.
- The Windows NT file system provides a combinations of security, file compression, encryption and many other things. It started with Windows NT where NTFS was the default file system.
Changes in NTFS Versions:
New technology file system was released with five versions:
- V1.0: Released with Windows NT 3.1.
- V1.1: Released with Windows NT 3.5, V1.0 is not compatible with V1.1.
- V1.2: Released with Windows NT 3.51, which supports compressed files, and access control lists.
- V3.0: Window 2000 came with NTFS V3.0 and this version supports many features like Supports disk quotas, Encrypting File System, sparse files, reparse points, update sequence number (USN) journaling, the $Extend folder and its files
- V3.1: Released with Windows XP and this version also came afterwards with windows vista, windows 7. This version came up with an enhanced Master File Table (MFT) with the recovering feature.
What makes Windows NTFS a great file System than others?
- NTFS file system is faster than other file systems because it search the file clusters by using B-tree directory scheme.
- NTFS provides Access control List so that administrator can control who can access specific files.
- New Technology file system provides File Compression.
- It provides security for data on removable disks and fixed disks both.
- It has another feature which is Volume Shadow Copy Service which helps to backup all your files by windows itself.
Why NTFS is better than FAT file System?
NTFS File systems are designed to perform quickly. If user is formatting volume with NTFS file system it creates several files automatically like $mft (Master File Table), $bitmap, $log file & others, which helps to work faster as well as resolve disk errors automatically without having to run Check Disk utility.
MFT (Master File Table)
New Technology file system consists of a table called MFT which enables the fast file search. When a file is created by using NTFS, all records about that file is created in a special file named as Master File Table (MFT). MFT contains the meta information about the file like file type, permissions, size, date & size of creation and authors identity.
In case of data corruption or data loss, two copies of MFT are stored. If first file get damaged NTFS reads the second record.
Advantages of NTFS File System
- NTFS removed the limitations of FAT file system, it can work with the large volumes up to 16 Exabyte.
- NT file system has inbuilt active directory and domain based Security and also provides compression.
- NTFS designed with the recoverability feature which means the user should not have to run disk repair utility for an NTFS partition.
Disadvantages of NTFS System:
- Once user converted the drive to NTFS, it can’t be converted back to FAT or FAT32.
- By using NTFS it is not possible to format a floppy disk.
- NTFS is not recommended to use on a volume which is lesser than 400 MB.
No comments:
Post a Comment