![]() The reason is that we don't want to manage the whole storage space as a single unit and for a single purpose. Why should we split the storage devices into multiple partitions anyways? We usually do partitioning by a disk management tool provided by operating systems, or as a command-line tool provided by the system's firmware (I'll explain what firmware is).Ī storage device should have at least one partition or more if needed. Partitioning is splitting a storage device into several logical regions, so they can be managed separately as if they are separate storage devices. Storage devices must be partitioned and formatted before the first use. Space management, metadata, data encryption, file access control, and data integrity are the responsibilities of the file system too. However, a file system changes everything:Ī file system isn't just a bookkeeping feature, though. Imagine a room with piles of papers scattered all over the place.Ī storage device without a file system would be in the same situation - and it would be a useless electronic device. The term file system takes its name from the old paper-based data management systems, where we kept documents as files and put them into directories. Well, without a file system, the storage device would contain a big chunk of data stored back to back, and the operating system wouldn't be able to tell them apart. Why do we need a file system in the first place, you may ask? However, these concepts remain relevant to other environments and file systems. To keep this guide manageable, I'll concentrate on Unix-like environments when explaining the lower-level concepts or console commands. This guide helps you understand file systems in many contexts. When people talk about file systems, they might refer to different aspects of a file system depending on the context - that's where things start to seem knotty.Īnd you might end up asking yourself, WHAT IS A FILE SYSTEM ANYWAY? □ If the requested resource is a file, it's fetched from a file system. Whenever you download a file or access a web page over the Internet, a file system is involved too.įor instance, if you access a page on freeCodeCamp, your browser sends an HTTP request to freeCodeCamp's server to fetch the page. Or when you copy, edit, or delete a file, the file system handles it under the hood. :) What is a file system?Ī file system defines how files are named, stored, and retrieved from a storage device.Įvery time you open a file on your computer or smart device, your operating system uses its file system internally to load it from the storage device. But I'll sneak into the lower-level concepts as well, as long as it doesn't get boring. This post is meant to be a high-level overview of file systems. That's why I decided to write an article about it. The system gets back unused space as each individual compression buffer is compressed.It's a bit tricky to explain what exactly a file system is in just one sentence. When writing a compressed file, the system reserves disk space for the uncompressed size. NTFS provides real-time access to a compressed file, decompressing the file when it is opened and compressing it when it is closed. ![]() ![]() When the cluster size is greater than 4 KB on an NTFS volume, none of the NTFS compression functions are available.Įach NTFS data stream contains information that indicates whether any part of the stream is compressed. The compression algorithms in NTFS are designed to support cluster sizes of up to 4 KB. NTFS allows for the compression of an entire volume, of one or more folders within a volume, or even one or more files within a folder of an NTFS volume. For example, if you copy a compressed file from another Windows NT/2000-based computer to a compressed folder on your hard disk, the file is decompressed when read, copied, and then recompressed when saved. When an application such as Microsoft® Word or an operating system command such as copy requests access to the file, the compression filter driver decompresses the file before making it available. Only NTFS can read the compressed form of the data. Compressed files and folders have an attribute of C when viewed in Windows Explorer. The file is compressed again when it is closed or saved. Files compressed on an NTFS volume can be read and written by any Windows-based application without first being decompressed by another program.ĭecompression occurs automatically when the file is read. Windows NT/2000 supports compression on individual files, folders, and entire NTFS volumes.
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