Windows File System Comparison - Assignment Example

The two main categories of file systems used by different Microsoft Windows operating systems are the File Allocation Table (FAT) and the New Technology File System (NTFS). There are different versions of FAT, which are FAT 12, FAT 16, and FAT 32; while for NTFS, there are NTFS or NTFS 4 and NTFS 5. These file systems have many characteristics in common which will be pointed out in the discussion below. The FAT file system is the one being used by Microsoft DOS and older versions of Microsoft Windows.

In fact, any version of Windows can have FAT as its file system. When a volume is formatted and the FAT file system is used, a data structure is created by Windows which is used to record the data blocks on the hard drive that are allocated to each file in order for the files to be retrieved at a later time. FAT is considered to be a simple file system that makes it an ideal file system format for most memory cards and floppy disks. A FAT file system is suggested if the computer has two operating systems installed.

The FAT file system allows file sharing among different operating systems. That is one advantage of using FAT as the start-up partition even for newer computers that have the latest versions of Microsoft Windows. One of the major limitations of the FAT file system is its ability to handle large files and volumes.  However, its maximum volume limit is 16 MB which is why this is only commonly used in floppy disks.FAT 16 This file system supports all versions of Microsoft operating systems but only allows a maximum volume size of 2 to 4 GB and maximum files of 65,536.

The maximum size a file can have is also 2 GB. The standard FAT 16 version only allows 8 characters in the file name and 3 characters for the extension name; whereas, with the extended version, it already allows up to 255 characters. FAT 32 The only operating systems that are supported by this file system are DOS 7.0, Windows 98, ME, 2000, and XP. The volume size limit is increased to 32 GB for all operating systems, but in some cases, up to 2 TB. The maximum number of files that can be on a FAT 32 volume is 4,194,304 with a maximum file size of 4 GB less than 2 bytes.

New Technology File System (NTFS) As Yousef stated, the New Technology File System or NTFS is:An advanced file system that provides performance, security, reliability, and advanced features that are not found in any version of FAT. For example, NTFS guarantees volume consistency by using standard transaction logging and recovery techniques. If a system fails, NTFS uses its log file and checkpoint information to restore the consistency of the file system. In Windows 2000 and XP, NTFS also provides advanced features such as file and folder permissions, encryption, disk quotas, and compression. (2004) Both versions of NTFS have the maximum volume size limit of 2 TB but there is no limit to the number of files that can be stored in the volume, as well as to the file size.

NTFS 4 or plain NTFS started with Windows NT 4.0 and can also support Windows 2000, XP and 2003 Server.