Reference number: CH000165

Additional information on NTFS.

Request:

Additional information on NTFS.

Information:

NTFS is short for New Technology File System; a file system which was originally designed for Windows NT and today is supported in Windows 2000, Windows XP and some Unix variant operating systems. NTFS, when compared to previous File Systems such as FAT16, improves on reliability, security and support for client-server systems.

Windows NT NTFS uses 5 MB of overhead therefore it is recommended that at least a 50 MB partition be used for NTFS on at least a 400MB hard disk drive.

NTFS keeps track of the contents of a volume in a file called the MFT, or Master File Table, which essentially is the heart of NTFS. MFT is an index of all the files on an NTFS volume, containing the file name, a list of the file attributes, and pointers to the fragments. 

Some of the NTFS key features are:

• NTFS supports long file names.
• NTFS supports the preservation of case. NTFS is not case-sensitive, however, it does have the capability to preserve case for POSIX compliance.
• NTFS is a recoverable file system. It uses transaction logging to automatically log all file and directory updates so that in the case of a power outage or system failure, this information can be used to redo failed operations.
• NTFS supports Compression of files and directories to optimize storage space on your hard disk.
• NTFS supports the maximum size the NTFS 4.0 and below can support, which is 4GIG. Windows NT 4.0 supports up to 16 Exabytes.
• NTFS provides the user with local security for protecting files and directories.
• NTFS supports spanning volumes, which means files and directories can be spread out across several physical drives.
• NTFS is a Journaling file system.

Windows 2000 is included with an upgraded version of NTFS, version 5.0. NTFS 5.0 enables the below new features.

• Disk quotas.
• New Concept referred to as Dynamic Disk support along with the original basic disk (primary / extended partitions).

Windows XP and Windows 2003 Server version of NTFS supports additional features as listed below.

• Supports larger file sizes, up to 4GB per file, great feature for users who do video editing.
• Support for larger sized hard drives.
• Improved performance, increasing general performance of the drive and the boot times of Windows.

Additional information:

• Additional information about determining the type of file system on a hard disk drive can be found on document CH000713.