NTFS File System

What is NTFS File System?

NTFS stands for New Technology File System. It is the standard file system of Windows NT and all the later versions of Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista and not to forget Windows 7. It was introduced by Microsoft in 1993 along with Windows NT 3.1. This file system supersedes the FAT file system, as it has several improvements over FAT (File Allocation Table) and HPFS (High Performance File System). Some of the improvisations include improved support for metadata, the use of advanced data structures to improve performance, reliability, disk space utilizations, etc. The additional features, that come with NTFS include, security access control lists and file system journaling.

The advantage of NTFS over FAT and HPFS is that there are no special objects on the disk and also there is no dependence on the underlying hardware. In addition to this, the other advantage is that there is no special locations on the disk, like FAT tables or HPFS super blocks. NTFS is able to support hard drive up to 256 TB size.

Advantages of NTFS File System

It is recommended to use NTFS file system, as there are many advantages of this file system. We will see, what are they.

NTFS File and Folder Permissions
With the NTFS permission, you will be able to control access to every file on an NTFS volume. It is possible to configure permissions at each level of the directory structure to meet your needs for giving and denying access to files and folders. At the same time, it is important to understand, that there is a difference between share permission and NTFS permission.

Allows Compression
There is a unique compression algorithm used in NTFS, which maintains the validity of data during decompression and also ensures that no data is lost while compressing and decompressing of data. At the same time, NTFS allows users to compress individual documents, files and also entire folders. Compression decreases the size and reduces the space occupied by various programs, folders as well as files. Not only does NTFS allow folder compression, but it also highlights compressed folders and files for easier identification.

Encrypting File System
There is a public/private key pair, which is used by the encrypting file system. This provides strong cryptographic encryption of files and folders, which is extremely resistant to attack and compromise. The advantage of encrypting file system is that it is completely transparent to the user and Windows XP supports multiple user access to any one of the encrypted file. However, there is a disadvantage of encrypting file system, its usage is mutually exclusive with NTFS compression.

Repairs Faults
NTFS is known to automatically scan drives, isolate faults and repair NTFS file system of all errors without any user intervention. All transaction logs are maintained and a track of all hard drive errors and disk failure is also recorded. This helps hard drive data recovery in the event or a hard drive failure.

Reliability
There is greater reliability offered by NTFS. This is due to the higher rate of recoverability, removal of errors and sector failures and also automatic hot fixing. The advantage NTFS has over FAT system is that it removes the limitations posed by FAT system by increasing the size of volumes and files.

Due to the above mentioned advantages of this file system, it has become more popular over the FAT system, etc. The disadvantages of NTFS is that the NTFS volumes are not accessible in MS-DOS, Windows 95 and Windows 98. The other disadvantage is that, when there are very small volumes, that contain mostly small files, the overhead of managing NTFS may cause slight performance drop in comparison to FAT file system. However, the disadvantages score over the advantages hands down.