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File Systems
Computer Systems

File Allocation Table

A special file that is used by the
operating system to store the physical
location of all the files on a storage
medium such as floppy disks or hard
disks.
Like creating a table of contents
Varies depending on the type of media
It was developed by Bill Gates and Marc
McDonald during 19761977

How FAT stores data?

The OS looks at the FAT to see w/c clusters are
empty.
The OS then puts the data of the file in empty
clusters.
The name of the new file & the no. of the
cluster are recorded in the directory.
If a file doesnt fit a single cluster will spill over
to the adjacent empty cluster.
If the adjacent cluster is full, the OS stores the
file in a noncontiguous (non-adjacent) cluster &
sets up instructions called pointers.

How is data be retrieved?

The OS looks through the directory for the
filename & the no. of the first cluster.
The FAT tells the PC w/c clusters contains the
remaining data for the file.
The OS moves the R/W head to the cluster
that contains the beginning of the file.
If the file is stored in more than 1 cluster, the
R/W head must move to the next cluster.
NOTE: It takes longer to access a file stored in
a noncontiguous cluster

When a file is being erased..

The OS changes the status of the appropriate
cluster in the FAT.
Ex. Cluster 7,8,10. The status is changed into
empty or 0.
The data is not physically removed from the
cluster. Instead, it will remain until a new file
is stored there.
To recover:
For DOS, undelete utilities.
For Windows, Recycle Bin.

For Random Access Storages

File tends to become FRAGMENT
meaning file is stored in noncontiguous
clusters.
DEFRAGMENT Utility arranges the file
so that it will be stored in contiguous
clusters.

Result

Assignment
Compare FAT32 and NTFS

FAT
Cluster Size = Disk Space / Number of
Clusters Possible
The cluster size depends on the
operating system and several variables,
including the size of the hard disk or its
partitions.
DOS 3 has a limit of 32 MB (Fat 12)
DOS 6 has a limit of 2 GB (Fat 16)
Win95 has a limit of 2 TB or 2000GB (Fat
32)

FAT16
When a FAT16 volume is formatted
the size of the volume determines
the default cluster size.
The cluster number cannot exceed a
value that can be represented by
16bits and must be a power of 2.

FAT16 Default Cluster Sizes

Volume Size (MB)
0 32
33 64
65 128
129 256
257 512
513 - 1024
1025 2048
2049 - 4096

Cluster Size
512 bytes
1KB
2KB
4KB
8KB
16KB
32KB
54KB

FAT32
Microsoft introduced FAT32 with
Windows 95. They implemented FAT32
with few changes to the existing FAT16
architecture in order to remain
compatible.
One of the significant changes was the
use of 4 bytes to store cluster values as
opposed to 2 bytes in FAT16.

FAT 32 Default Cluster Sizes

Volume Size
Less than 8 GB

Default cluster
Size
4KB

Between 8 and 16GB

8KB

Between 16 and 32GB 16KB

Greater than 32GB

32KB

FAT32
uses 16 KB clusters for partition sizes
between 16 and 32 GB
A 20 KB file would require two 16 KB
clusters actually occupying 32 KB of
space. A mere 1 KB file still requires 16
KB of space.
A typical large disk might have 30% or
even 40% of its space wasted in this
way

Problems with FAT

with bigger disks is the large amount of
wasted space or slack
Another problem is file fragmentation

FAT32 Multiple Issues

-windows systems can only format a drive
up to 32 GB.
- The maximum file size on a FAT32
formatted drive is around 4 GB.
- Dealing with fragmentation and free disk
space calculations can become painfully
resource intensive in large FAT32 systems.
- A FAT32 directory can have 65,536
directory entries.

NTFS
stores all objects in
Volume Size
the file system using
a record called the
7 -512 MB
Master File Table
(MFT),

NTFS
Cluster Size
512 bytes

513-1,024 MB

1 KB

1,025MB-2 GB

2 KB

2GB-2 terabytes

4 KB

ADVANTAGES of NTFS:
NTFS is much more flexible than FAT.
Its system areas are almost all files
instead of the fixed structures used in
FAT.
NTFS has much more security built in.
supports both long and short file names

ADVANTAGES of NTFS:
NTFS is much more flexible than FAT.
Its system areas are almost all files
instead of the fixed structures used in
FAT.
NTFS has much more security built in.
supports both long and short file names

ADVANTAGES of NTFS:

File compression
Encrypting File System (EFS)
Volume Shadow Copy
Disk quotas

LIMITATIONS of NTFS:
NTFS volumes are accessible only by
using Windows NT 4.0 with Service
Pack 4 or later, Windows 2000,
Windows XP, and all successors to date
. Old software might not run on NTFS

exFAT
is a proprietary file system designed
especially for flash drives developed by
Microsoft, who have applied for patent
protection

exFAT Limits
Volume size 128PiB
MS said 64ZiB
MS now says 256TiB
File Size 16 EiB (64 bit number)
Bigger than volume size
Subdirectory 256MiB
Sector 512-4096 bytes (29-212)
Cluster 32MiB (225)
No floppy support
No FAT32 minimum cluster (65,525) restriction
No 8.3 file name support
June 6th, 2010

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TASK