File system

Encyclopedia : F : FI : FIL : File system

For library and office filing systems, see Library classification.

In computing, a file system is a method for storing and organizing computer files and the data they contain to make it easy to find and access them. File systems may use a storage device such as a hard disk or CD-ROM and involve maintaining the physical location of the files, or they may be virtual and exist only as an access method for virtual data or for data over a network (e.g. NFS).

More formally, a file system is a set of abstract data types that are implemented for the storage, hierarchical organization, manipulation, navigation, access, and retrieval of data.

Contents

Aspects of file systems

The most familiar file systems make use of an underlying data storage device that offers access to an array of fixed-size blocks, sometimes called sectors, generally 512 bytes each. The file system software is responsible for organizing these sectors into files and directories, and keeping track of which sectors belong to which file and which are not being used.

However, file systems need not make use of a storage device at all. A file system can be used to organize and represent access to any data, whether it be stored or dynamically generated (eg, from a network connection).

Whether the file system has an underlying storage device or not, file systems typically have directories which associate file names with files, usually by connecting the file name to an index into a file allocation table of some sort, such as the FAT in an MS-DOS file system, or an inode in a Unix-like filesystem. Directory structures may be flat, or allow hierarchies where directories may contain subdirectories. In some file systems, file names are structured, with special syntax for filename extensions and version numbers. In others, file names are simple strings, and per-file metadata is stored elsewhere.

The hierarchical filesystem was an early research interest of Dennis Ritchie of Unix fame; previous implementations were restricted to only a few levels, notably the IBM implementations, even of their early databases like IMS. After the success of Unix, Ritchie extended the filesystem concept to every object in his later operating system developments, such as Plan 9 and Inferno.

Traditional filesystems offer facilities to create, move and delete both files and directories. They lack facilities to create additional links to a directory (hard links in Unix), rename parent links (".." in Unix-like OS), and create bidirectional links to files.

Traditional filesystems also offer facilities to truncate, append to, create, move, delete and in-place modify files. They do not offer facilities to prepend to or truncate from the beginning of a file, let alone arbitrary insertion into or deletion from a file. The operations provided are highly asymmetric and lack the generality to be useful in unexpected contexts. For example, interprocess pipes in Unix have to be implemented outside of the filesystem because it does not offer truncation from the beginning of files.

Secure access to basic file system operations can be based on a scheme of access control lists or capabilities. Research has shown access control lists to be difficult to secure properly, which is why research operating systems tend to use capabilities. Commercial file systems still use access control lists. see: secure computing

Types of file systems

File system types can be classified into disk file systems, network file systems and special purpose file systems.

Disk file systems

A disk file system is a file system designed for the storage of files on a data storage device, most commonly a disk drive, which might be directly or indirectly connected to the computer. Examples of disk file systems include FAT, NTFS, HFS, ext2, ext3, ISO 9660, ODS-5, and UDF. Some disk file systems are also journaling file systems or versioning file systems.

Database file systems

New concepts for file management are database-based file systems. Instead of hierarchical structured management, files are identified by their characteristics, like type of file, topic, author, or similar metadata. Therefore a file search can be formulated in SQL or in natural speech. Examples include BFS, Gnome VFS, HFS+, and WinFS.

Transactional file systems

This is a special kind of file system in that it logs events or transactions to files. Each operation that you do may involve changes to a number of different files and disk structures. In many cases, these changes are related, meaning that it is important that they all be executed at the same time. Take for example a bank sending another bank some money electronically. The bank's computer will "send" the transfer instruction to the other bank and also update its own records to indicate the transfer has occurred. If for some reason the computer crashes before it has had a chance to update its own records, then on reset, there will be no record of the transfer but the bank will be missing some money. A transactional system can rebuild the actions by resynchronizing the "transactions" on both ends to correct the failure. All transactions can be saved, as well, providing a complete record of what was done and where. This type of file system is designed and intended to be fault tolerant and necessarily, incurs a high degree of overhead.

Special purpose file systems

A special purpose file system is basically any file system that is not a disk file system or network file system. This includes systems where the files are arranged dynamically by software, intended for such purposes as communication between computer processes or temporary file space.

Special purpose file systems are most commonly used by file-centric operating systems such as Unix. Examples include the procfs (/proc) filesystem used by some Unix variants, which grants access to information about processes and other operating system features.

Deep space science exploration craft, like Voyager I & II used digital tape based special file systems. Most modern space exploration craft like Cassini-Huygens used Real-time operating system file systems or RTOS influenced file systems. The Mars Rovers are one such example of an RTOS file system, important in this case because they are implemented in flash memory.

File systems and operating systems

Most operating systems provide a file system, as a file system is an integral part of any modern operating system. Early microcomputer operating systems' only real task was file management - a fact reflected in their names (see DOS and QDOS). Some early operating systems had a separate component for handling file systems which was called a disk operating system. On some microcomputers, the disk operating system was loaded separately from the rest of the operating system. On early operating systems, there was usually support for only one, native, unnamed file system; for example, CP/M supports only its own file system, which might be called "CP/M file system" if needed, but which didn't bear any official name at all.

Because of this, there needs to be an interface provided by the operating system software between the user and the file system. This interface can be textual (such as provided by a command line interface, such as the Unix shell, or OpenVMS DCL) or graphical (such as provided by a graphical user interface, such as file browsers). If graphical, the metaphor of the folder, containing documents, other files, and nested folders is often used (see also: directory and folder).

Flat file systems

In a flat file system, there are no directories — everything is stored at the same (root) level on the media, be it a hard disk, floppy disk, etc. While simple, this system rapidly becomes inefficient as the number of files grows, and makes it difficult for users to organise data into related groups.

Like many small systems before it, the original Apple Macintosh featured a flat file system, called Macintosh File System. Its version of Mac OS was unusual in that the file management software (Macintosh Finder) created the illusion of a partially hierarchical filing system on top of MFS. MFS was quickly replaced with Hierarchical File System, which supported real directories.

File systems under Unix and Unix-like systems

[[wikibooks:Guide to Unix|Wikibooks Guide to Unix]] has more about this subject:

[[wikibooks:Guide to Unix/Explanations/Filesystems and Swap|Filesystems and Swap]]

Unix and Unix-like operating systems assign a device name to each device, but this is not how the files on that device are accessed. Instead, Unix creates a virtual file system, which makes all the files on all the devices appear to exist under one hierarchy. This means, in Unix, there is one root directory, and every file existing on the system is located under it somewhere. Furthermore, the Unix root directory does not have to be in any physical place. It might not be on your first hard drive - it might not even be on your computer. Unix can use a network shared resource as its root directory.

To gain access to files on another device, you must first inform the operating system where in the directory tree you would like those files to appear. This process is called mounting a file system. For example, to access the files on a CD-ROM, one must tell the operating system "Take the file system from this CD-ROM and make it appear under thus-and-such a directory". The directory given to the operating system is called the mount point - it might, for example, be /mnt. The /mnt directory exists on many Unix-like systems (as specified in the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard) and is intended specifically for use as a mount point for temporary media like floppy disks or CDs. It may be empty, or it may contain subdirectories for mounting individual devices. Generally, only the administrator (i.e. root user) may authorize the mounting of file systems.

Unix-like operating systems often include software and tools that assist in the mounting process and provide it new functionality. Some of these strategies have been coined "auto-mounting" as a reflection of their purpose.

In many situations, filesystems other than the root need to be available as soon as the operating system has booted. All Unix-like systems therefore provide a facility for mounting filesystems at boot time. System administrators define these filesystems in the configuration file fstab, which also indicates options and mount points.
In some situations, there is no need to mount certain filesystems at boot time, although their use may be desired thereafter. There are some utilities for Unix-like systems that allow the mounting of predefined filesystems upon demand.
Removable media have become very common with microcomputer platforms. They allow programs and data to be transferred between machines without a physical connection. Two common examples include CD-ROMs and DVDs. Utilities have therefore been developed to detect the presence and availability of a medium and then mount that medium without any user intervention.

Progressive Unix-like systems have also introduced a concept called supermounting; see, for example, [the Linux supermount-ng project]. For example, a floppy disk that has been supermounted can be physically removed from the system. Under normal circumstances, the disk should have been synchronised and then unmounted before its removal. Provided synchronisation has occurred, a different disk can be inserted into the drive. The system automatically notices that the disk has changed and updates the mount point contents to reflect the new medium. Similar functionality is found on standard Windows machines.
A similar innovation preferred by some users is the use of [autofs], a system that, like supermounting, eliminates the need for manual mounting commands. The difference from supermount, other than compatibility in an apparent greater range of applications such as access to file systems on network servers, is that devices are mounted transparently when requests to their filesystems are made, as would be appropriate for file systems on network servers, rather than relying on events such as the insertion of media, as would be appropriate for removable media.

File systems under Mac OS X

Mac OS X uses a file system that it inherited from Mac OS called HFS Plus. HFS Plus is a metadata-rich and case preserving file system. Due to the Unix roots of Mac OS X, Unix permissions were added to HFS Plus. Later versions of HFS Plus added a journal to prevent corruption of the file system structure and introduced a number of optimizations to the allocation algorithms in an attempt to defragment files automatically without requiring an external defragmenter.

Filenames can be up to 255 characters. HFS Plus uses Unicode to store filenames. On Mac OS X, the filetype can come from the Type code stored in file's metadata or the filename.

HFS Plus has three kinds of links: Hard links, Symbolic links and Aliases. Aliases are designed to maintain a link to their original file even if they are moved or renamed.

File systems under Plan 9 from Bell Labs

Plan 9 from Bell Labs was originally designed to extend some of Unix's good points, and to introduce some new ideas of its own while fixing the shortcomings of Unix.

With respect to file systems, the Unix system of treating things as files was continued, but in Plan 9, everything is treated as a file, and accessed as a file would be (ie., no ioctl or mmap). Perhaps surprisingly, while the file interface is made universal it is also simplified considerably, for example symlinks, hard links and suid are made obsolete, and an atomic create/open operation is introduced. More importantly the set of file operations becomes well defined and subversions of this like ioctl are eliminated.

Secondly, the underlying 9P protocol was used to remove the difference between local and remote files (except for a possible difference in latency). This has the advantage that a device or devices, represented by files, on a remote computer could be used as though it were the local computer's own device(s). This means that under Plan 9, multiple file servers provide access to devices, classing them as file systems. Servers for "synthetic" file systems can also run in user space bringing many of the advantages of micro kernel systems while maintaining the simplicity of the system.

Everything on a Plan 9 system has an abstraction as a file; networking, graphics, debugging, authentication, capabilities, encryption, and other services are accessed via I-O operations on file descriptors. For example, this allows the use of the IP stack of a gateway machine without need of NAT, or provides a network-transparent window system without the need of any extra code.

Another example: a Plan-9 application receives FTP service by opening an FTP site. The ftpfs server handles the open by essentially mounting the remote FTP site as part of the local file system. With ftpfs as an intermediary, the application can now use the usual file-system operations to access the FTP site as if it were part of the local file system. A further example is the mail system which uses file servers that synthesize virtual files and directories to represent a user mailbox as /mail/fs/mbox. The wikifs provides a file system interface to a wiki.

These file systems are organized with the help of private, per-process namespaces, allowing each process to have a different view of the many file systems that provide resources in a distributed system.

The Inferno operating system shares these concepts with Plan 9.

File systems under Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows developed out of an earlier operating system (MS-DOS which in turn was based on QDOS and that on CP/M-80, which took many ideas from still earlier operating systems, notably several from DEC), and has added both file system and user interface ideas from several other sources since its first release (Unix, OS/2, etc). As such, Windows makes use of the FAT (File Allocation Table) and NTFS (New Technology File System) filesystems. Older versions of the FAT file system had file name length limits, plus had restrictions on the maximum size of FAT-formatted disks or partitions.

NTFS, introduced with the Windows NT operating system, allowed ACL-based permission control. Hard links, multiple file streams, attribute indexing, quota tracking, compression and mount-points for other file systems (called "junctions") are also supported, though not all these features are well-documented.

Unlike many other operating systems, Windows uses a drive letter abstraction at the user level to distinguish one disk or partition from another. For example, the path C:\WINDOWS\ represents a directory WINDOWS on the partition represented by the letter C. The C drive is most commonly used for the primary hard disk partition, on which Windows is installed and from which it boots. This "tradition" has become so firmly ingrained that bugs came about in older versions of Windows which made assumptions that the drive that the operating system was installed on was C. The tradition of using "C" for the drive letter can be traced to MS-DOS, where the letters A and B were reserved for up to two floppy disk drives; in a common configuration, A would be the 3½-inch floppy drive, and B the 5¼-inch one. Network drives may also be mapped to drive letters.

Since Windows interacts with the user via a graphical user interface, its documentation refers to directories as a folder which contains files, and is represented graphically with a folder icon.

File systems under OpenVMS

This topic is discussed here: Files-11

File systems under MVS [IBM Mainframe]

This topic is discussed here: MVS#MVS filesystem

Comparison

General information

File system	Creator	Introduced in	Original operating system
DECtape	DEC	1964	PDP-6 Monitor
Level-D	DEC	1968	TOPS-10
V6FS	Bell Labs	1972	Version 6 Unix
RT-11	DEC	1973	RT-11
FAT12	Microsoft	1977	Microsoft Disk BASIC
V7FS	Bell Labs	1979	Version 7 Unix
ODS-2	DEC	1979	OpenVMS
FFS	Kirk McKusick	1983	4.2BSD
MFS	Apple Computer	1984	Mac OS
HFS	Apple Computer	1985	Mac OS
OFS	Metacomco for Commodore	1985	Amiga OS
NWFS	Novell	1985	NetWare 286
Amiga FFS	Commodore	1987	Amiga OS 1.3
FAT16	Microsoft	1987	MS-DOS 3.31
HPFS	IBM & Microsoft	1988	OS/2
JFS	IBM	1990	AIX
VxFS	VERITAS	1991	SVR4.0
AdvFS	DEC	Before 1993	Digital Unix
NTFS	Microsoft, Gary Kimura, Tom Miller	1993	Windows NT
LFS	Margo Seltzer	1993	Berkeley Sprite
ext2	Rémy Card	1993	Linux
UFS1	Kirk McKusick	1994	4.4BSD
XFS	SGI	1994	IRIX
UDF	ISO/ECMA/OSTA	1995	-
FAT32	Microsoft	1996	Windows 95b
QFS	Sun Microsystems	1996	Solaris
Be File System	Be Inc., D. Giampaolo, C. Meurillon	1996	BeOS
HFS Plus	Apple	1998	Mac OS 8.1
NSS	Novell	1998	NetWare 5
ext3	Stephen Tweedie	1999	Linux
JFS2	IBM	1999	OS/2 WSeB
GFS	Sistina(Red Hat)	2000	Linux
ReiserFS	Namesys	2001	Linux
FATX	Microsoft	2002	Xbox
UFS2	Kirk McKusick	2002	FreeBSD 5.0
OCFS	Oracle	2002	Linux
ODS-5	DEC	2003	OpenVMS 8.0
Fossil	Bell Labs	2003	Plan 9 from Bell Labs 4
Google File System	Google	2003	Linux
ZFS	Sun Microsystems	2004	Solaris
Reiser4	Namesys	2004	Linux
OCFS2	Oracle	2005	Linux
NILFS	NTT	2005	Linux
GFS2	Red Hat	2006	Linux
File system	Creator	Introduced in	Original operating system

Limits

	Maximum filename length		Maximum pathname length	Maximum file size
DECtape	6.3	A-Z, 0-9	DTxN:FILNAM.EXT = 15	369,280 bytes (577 * 640)	369,920 Bytes (578 * 640)
Level-D	6.3	A-Z, 0-9	DEVICE:FILNAM.EXT[PROJCT,PROGRM] = 7 + 10 + 15 = 32; + 5*7 for SFDs = 67	34,359,738,368 words (2**35-1); 206,158,430,208 SIXBIT bytes	Approx 12 GB (64 * 178MB)
RT-11	12 bytes	A-Z, 0-9, $	16 bytes	33,554,432 bytes (65536 * 512)	33,554,432 Bytes
V6FS				MiB	2TiB
V7FS				GiB	2TiB
FAT12		Unicode except NUL ²⁶		32MiB	1MiB to 32MiB
FAT16		Unicode except NUL ²⁶		2GiB	16MiB to 2GiB
FATX		ASCII. Unicode not permitted.		2GiB	16MiB to 2GiB
Fossil
MFS	255 bytes	Any byte except :	No path (flat filesystem)	256MiB	256MiB
HFS	31 bytes	Any byte except :	Unlimited	2GiB	2TiB
FAT32		Unicode except NUL ²⁶		4GiB	MiB to 2TiB
HPFS	255 bytes			4GiB	TiB
NTFS	255 characters	Any Unicode except NUL		EiB	EiB
HFS Plus		Unicode ²⁶	Unlimited	8EiB	EiB
FFS	255 bytes			4GiB	256TiB
UFS1	255 bytes			4GiB to 256TiB	256TiB
UFS2	255 bytes			512GiB to 32PiB	1YiB
ext2	255 bytes			GiB to 2TiB	2TiB to 32TiB
ext3	255 bytes			GiB to 2TiB	2TiB to 32TiB
GFS	255			TB to 8EB	TB to 8EB
ReiserFS	4032 bytes/255 characters			TiB	16TiB
Reiser4				8TiB on x86
OCFS	255 bytes			8TiB	8TiB
OCFS2	255 bytes			4PiB	4PiB
XFS	255 bytes			EiB	EiB
JFS	255 bytes			8EiB	512TiB to 4PiB
JFS2	255 bytes	Any Unicode except NUL		4PiB	32PiB
QFS	255 bytes			EiB	PiB
Be File System	255 bytes			GiB	256PiB to 2EiB
AdvFS	255 characters			16TiB	16TiB
NSS	256 characters		Only limited by client	8TiB	8TiB
NWFS				4GiB	1TiB
ODS-5				1TiB	1TiB
VxFS	255 bytes			16EiB
UDF	255 bytes	Any Unicode except NUL		16EiB
ZFS	255 bytes	Any Unicode except NUL		16EiB	16EiB
	Maximum filename length		Maximum pathname length	Maximum file size

	Stores file owner	POSIX file permissions	Creation timestamps	Last access/read timestamps	Last metadata change timestamps	Last archive timestamps	Access control lists	Security/MAC labels	Extended attributes/Alternate data streams/forks	Checksum/ECC
DECtape	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario
Level-D	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario
RT-11	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario
V6FS	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario
V7FS	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario
FAT12	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario
FAT16	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario
FAT32	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario
HPFS		Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario		style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario
NTFS	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|		style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario
HFS	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario
HFS Plus	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|		style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario
FFS	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario
UFS1	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario			Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario
UFS2	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario			style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario
LFS	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario
ext2	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario			style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario
ext3	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario			style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario
GFS	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario			style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario
ReiserFS	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario			style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario
Reiser4	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario
OCFS	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario
OCFS2	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario
XFS	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|		style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario
JFS	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario
QFS	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario
Be File System	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario
AdvFS	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario
NSS	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|			style="background: #ddffdd" \|		style="background: #ddffdd" \|		²⁹	Northern Ontario
NWFS	style="background: #ddffdd" \|				style="background: #ddffdd" \|		style="background: #ddffdd" \|		²⁹	Northern Ontario
ODS-5	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|			style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|			Northern Ontario
VxFS	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|			Northern Ontario
UDF	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario
Fossil	style="background: #ddffdd" \|		Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario
ZFS	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario		style="background: #ddffdd" \|
	Stores file owner	POSIX file permissions	Creation timestamps	Last access/read timestamps	Last metadata change timestamps	Last archive timestamps	Access control lists	Security/MAC labels	Extended attributes/Alternate data streams/forks	Checksum/ECC

Features

	Hard links	Soft links	Block journaling or	Metadata-only journaling	Case-sensitive	Case-preserving	File Change Log	Incremental snapshots	XIP
DECtape	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario
Level-D	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario
RT-11	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario
V6FS	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario
V7FS	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario
FAT12	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario
FAT16	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ffffdd;" \|	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario
FAT32	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ffffdd;" \|	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario
HPFS	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario		Northern Ontario
NTFS	style="background: #ddffdd" \|		Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|		style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|
HFS Plus	style="background: #ffffdd;" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario			style="background: #ddffdd" \|		Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario
FFS	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario
UFS1	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario
UFS2	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|
LFS	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|		Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario
ext2	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario
ext3	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|		style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario
ReiserFS	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|		style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario
Reiser4	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario
OCFS	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario
OCFS2	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario
XFS	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|		style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|
JFS	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|		style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario
QFS	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario
Be File System	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|			Northern Ontario
NSS	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|		style="background: #ddffdd" \|				style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario
NWFS			Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario					Northern Ontario
ODS-2	style="background: #ddffdd" \|		Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario
ODS-5	style="background: #ddffdd" \|		Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|
UDF	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|			style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|
VxFS	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|
Fossil	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario
ZFS	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|		Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario
	Hard links	Soft links	Block journaling or	Metadata-only journaling	Case-sensitive	Case-preserving	File Change Log	Incremental snapshots	XIP

Allocation and layout policies

	Tail packing	Transparent compression	Block suballocation	Allocate-on-flush	Extents
DECtape	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario
Level-D	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario
V6FS	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario
V7FS	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario
FAT12	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario
FAT16	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario
FAT32	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario
HPFS	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario
NTFS	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ffffdd;" \|	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario
HFS Plus	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario		Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario
FFS	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario		Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario
UFS1	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario		Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario
UFS2	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario		Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|
LFS	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario		Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario
ext2	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario
ext3	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario
ReiserFS	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario
Reiser4	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|		Northern Ontario
OCFS	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario
OCFS2	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario
XFS	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario
JFS	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario
QFS	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario
Be File System	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario
NSS	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario
NWFS	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|		Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario
ODS-5	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario
VxFS	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario		Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario
UDF	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario		style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario
Fossil	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario	Northern Ontario
ZFS	Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|			Northern Ontario	style="background: #ddffdd" \|
	Tail packing	Transparent compression	Block suballocation	Allocate-on-flush	Extents

Notes

Note 1: The Mac OS provides two sets of functions to retrieve file names from a HFS Plus volume, one of them returning the full Unicode names, the other shortened names fitting in the older 31 byte limit to accommodate older applications.
Note 2: HFS Plus mandates support for an escape sequence to allow arbitrary Unicode. Users of older software might see the escape sequences instead of the desired characters.
Note 3: Varies wildly according to block size and fragmentation of block allocation groups.
Note 4: For filesystems that have variable allocation unit (block/cluster) sizes, a range of size are given, indicating the maximum volume sizes for the minimum and the maximum possible allocation unit sizes of the filesystem (e.g. 512 bytes and 128KiB for FAT — which is the cluster size range allowed by the on-disk data structures, although some Installable File System drivers and operating systems do not support cluster sizes larger than 32KiB).
Note 5: NTFS access control lists can express essentially any access policy possible using simple POSIX file permissions, but use of a POSIX-like interface is not supported without an add-on such as Services for UNIX or Cygwin.
Note 6: The file change logs, last entry change timestamps, and other filesystem metadata, are all part of the extensive suite of auditing capabilities built into NDS/eDirectory called NSure Audit. ([Filesystem Events tracked by NSure])
Note 7: While FAT32 partitions this large work fine once created, some software won't allow creation of FAT32 partitions larger than 32GiB. This includes, notoriously, the Windows XP installation program. Use FDISK from a Windows ME Emergency Boot Disk to avoid.
Note 8: ReiserFS has a theoretical maximum file size of 1EiB, but "page cache limits this to 8 Ti on architectures with 32 bit int"[link]
Note 9: XFS has a limitation under Linux 2.4 of 64TiB file size, but Linux 2.4 only supports a maximum block size of 2TiB. This limitation is not present under IRIX.
Note 10: Microsoft first introduced FAT32 in Windows 95 OSR2 (OEM Service Release 2) and then later in Windows 98.
Note 11: IBM introduced JFS with the initial release of AIX Version 3.1 in 1990. This file system now called JFS1. The new JFS (sometimes called JFS2), on which the Linux port was based, was first shipped in OS/2 Warp Server for e-Business in 1999.
Note 12: The on-disk structures have no inherent limit. Particular Installable File System drivers and operating systems may impose limits of their own, however. MS-DOS does not support full pathnames longer than 260 bytes for FAT12 and FAT16. Windows NT does not support full pathnames longer than 32767 bytes for NTFS.
Note 13: This is the limit of the on-disk structures. The HPFS Installable File System driver for OS/2 uses the top 5 bits of the volume sector number for its own use, limiting the volume size that it can handle to 64GiB.
Note 14: The f-node contains a field for a user identifier. This is not used except by OS/2 Warp Server, however.
Note 15: Maximum combined filename/filetype length is 236 bytes; each component has an individual maximum length of 255 byes.
Note 16: Maximum pathname length is 4096 bytes, but quoted limits on individual components add up to 1664 bytes.
Note 17: Record Management Services (RMS) attributes include record type and size, among many others.
Note 18: These are referred to as "aliases".
Note 19: Novell calls this feature "multiple data streams". Published specifications say that NWFS allows for 16 attributes and 10 data streams, and NSS allows for unlimited quantities of both.
Note 20: Case-sensitivity/Preservation depends on client. Windows, DOS, and OS/2 clients don't see/keep case differences, whereas clients accessing via NFS or AFP may.
Note 21: Published specs say that the 128-bit file system provides for up to 2⁶⁴ bytes to describe the file system, file size, directory entries, etc, with a theoretical max of 2¹²⁸ bytes total to describe all storage on such a machine.
Not