What is NTFS (NT file system; sometimes New Technology File System)

NTFS (NT file system; sometimes new technology file system) file system that Windows NT operating system uses to store and retrieve files on the hard disk. NTFS is Windows NT equivalent of Windows 95 file allocation tables (FAT) and OS / 2 high-performance file system (HPFS). However, NTFS offers many improvements over FAT and HPFS in terms of performance, expansion, and security.

Notable features of NTFS include:

• Use of B-Tree Directory Scheme to keep track of file cluster

• Information about the clusters of the file and other data is stored with each cluster, not just a governing table (such as FAT)

• Support for very large files (up to 2 to the 64th power or approximately 16 billion bytes in size)

• An Access Control List (ACL) that controls a server administrator that can access specific files

• Integrated file compression

• Support for names based on Unicode

• Support of "8 by 3" names along with long file names

• Data protection on both removable and fixed discs

How NTFS Works

When a hard disk is formatted (initial), it is divided into total physical hard disk space or major partitions. Within each partition, the operating system keeps track of all the files that are stored by that operating system. Each file is actually stored in one or more clusters or same size disk space on the hard disk. Using NTFS, cluster sizes range from 512 bytes to 64 kilobytes. Windows NT provides a recommended default cluster size for any given drive size. For example, for a 4 GB (gigabyte) drive, the default cluster size is 4 kb (kilobytes). Note that clusters are inseparable. Even the smallest file takes a cluster and the 4.1 KB file takes two clusters (or 8 KB) on the 4 KB cluster system.

Selection of cluster size is a trade-off between efficient use of disk space and the number of disk access needed to access the file. Normally, using the NTFS, the larger the hard disk, the larger the default cluster size because it is believed that the system user likes to increase display (low disk access) at the expense of some location inability. Will do

When a file is created using NTFS, a record about the file is created in a special file, Master File Table (MFT). Records are used to detect potential scattered clusters of a file. NTFS tries to find embedded storage space that will keep the entire file (all its groups).

Each file contains its data content, its attributes (its metadata) details.