Understanding the NTFS filesystem
The New Technology File System (NTFS) is the default filesystem for Microsoft Windows operating systems. FAT32 had some significant shortcomings, which required a more reliable and efficient filesystem, along with additional administrative improvements to help Microsoft remain viable in a corporate environment. They initially designed NTFS for a server environment; however, as the hard drive capacity has increased, it is now the default filesystem in the commercial and consumer market for the Windows operating system.
NTFS is far more complicated than the FAT filesystem; however, the overall purpose remains the same:
- To record the metadata of a file, that is, the filename, the date timestamps, and the file size
- To mark the clusters the file occupies
- To record which clusters are allocated and which clusters are unallocated
The NTFS filesystem comprises the following system files:
Figure 4.28: NTFS table
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