Easy Notes is the new initiative of D2G where we put everything in Layman Language. As the name suggests it is made up with the help of individual’s notes, up to the point and consist no further explanations especially designed for Aspirants who have little knowledge about the respective Subject. Very Good to brush up your knowledge.

Today’s Topic: File System

What Is A File System?

# A file system is basically a set of rules used to decide how data is stored and fetched in a storage device, be it a hard drive, flash drive or something else. Like the conventional way we used to store data in our offices in different files, the same method is deployed in computing.

# A defined set of data called a ‘File’ is stored at a specified location in a storage device. If the file system is kicked out of the computing world, all we will be left with is a large chunk of unrecognizable data in our storage media.

# There are many types of files systems available for different types of storage options like the Disk File System, Flash File System, Tape File System, and so on. But for now, I’ll be restricting myself with the three Disk File Systems FAT32, NTFS, and ExFAT.

What Is FAT32 File System?

# Standing for File Allocation Table, it’s the oldest and the most experienced file system in the history of computing.

# It was coded by Marc McDonald following discussions with Microsoft’s co-founder Bill Gates.

# Further utilization of the FAT File System or FAT Structure as it was called referred earlier, was done in Microsoft’s 8080/Z80 platform-based operating system MDOS/MIDAS written by Marc McDonald, who was Microsoft’s first salaried employee.

# In the subsequent years, the FAT file system advanced to FAT12, FAT16 and finally, FAT32 that has been synonymous to the word file system when we have to deal external storage media like removable drives.

# The 32-bit File Allocation Table was released in August 1995, with the Windows 95 operating system. It allows you to store files of size up to 4 Gigs and the maximum disk size can go up to 16TB.

# The fatty file system can’t be used to install heavy apps or store large files, that’s why the modern Windows uses a new file system known as NTFS, for which we don’t have to worry about the file size and disk size limits.

What Is NTFS File System?

# Another Microsoft proprietary file system was introduced in 1993 with their Windows NT 3.1 coming into existence.

# It offers inexhaustible file size limits and you won’t run out of it anytime soon.

# IBM made HPFS (High-Performance File System) which was used in the OS/2 operating system and the Redmond created NTFS v1.0 released with Windows NT 3.1.

# The NTFS or New Technology File System offers a theoretical file size of 16 EB (ExaByte) – 1 KB which is 18,446,744,073,709,550,592 bytes.

# NTFS v3.1 was launched with Microsoft’s Windows XP and it hasn’t been changed much since then, although numerous additions like partition shrinking, self-healing, and NTFS Symbolic links have been added.

# Also, the implemented capacity of NTFS file system is only 256 TB out the whopping 16 EB – 1 KB which was done with the launch of Windows 8, for which Microsoft ended support.

# Other notable features include reparse points, sparse file support, disk usage quotas, distributed link tracking, and file-level encryption.

# The NTFS file system supports backward compatibility with the previous versions and it’s a journaling file system that proves to be an important tool when it comes to reviving a corrupt file system. It maintains a Journal, a data structure which keeps track of any potential modifications to the file system and is used to recover the file system.

# This file system is supported by Windows XP and later versions. Apple’s Mac OSX provides read-only support to an NTFS-formatted drive and only a few Linux variants are able to provide write support for NTFS.

What Is exFAT File System?

# The exFAT (Extended FAT) is another Microsoft proprietary file system which finds its use in ball games where the FAT32 feels out of breath.

# Most of the modern digital cameras use exFAT.

# High capacity SDXC memory cards are now pre-formatted with the exFAT, as it is lightweight in contrast to NTFS and supports file size more of than 4 GB.

# So, if you have an exFAT SD card you will have no issues while copying full-length HD movies on it which is not the case with FAT32.

# A FUSE-based version of the exFAT file system, named exfat-fuse, provides read/write operations for many Linux distributions including FreeBSD.

# Launched in 2006, it has the same 16 EB file size limit as NTFS, but it is way lighter as it doesn’t contain many of the extra features that the latter has.

# Talking about the compatibility, full read and write support is provided by Mac, Android, and Windows operating system but for Linux distributions, the appropriate software facilitates the support.

References:
FossBytes