File System

File Allocation Table (FAT)

A file allocation table (FAT) is a file system developed for hard drives that originally
used 12 or 16 bits for each cluster entry into the file allocation table. It is used by the
operating system (OS) to manage files on hard drives and other computer systems. It is
often also found on in flash memory, digital cameras and portable devices. It is used to
store file information and extend the life of a hard drive.
Most hard drives require a process known as seeking; this is the actual physical
searching and positioning of the read/write head of the drive. The FAT file system was
designed to reduce the amount of seeking and thus minimize the wear and tear on the
hard disc.

FAT was designed to support hard drives and subdirectories. The earlier FAT12 had a
cluster addresses to 12-bit values with up to 4078 clusters; it allowed up to 4084
clusters with UNIX. The more efficient FAT16 increased to 16-bit cluster address
allowing up to 65,517 clusters per volume, 512-byte clusters with 32MB of space, and
had a larger file system; with the four sectors it was 2,048 bytes.

A FAT file system has four different sections, each as a structure in the FAT
partition. The four sections are:

Boot Sector: This is also known as the reserved sector; it is located on the first part
of the disc. It contains: the OS's necessary boot loader code to start a PC system, the
partition table known as the master boot record (MRB) that describes how the drive is
organized, and the BIOS parameter block (BPB) which describes the physical outline of
the data storage volume.

FAT Region: This region generally encompasses two copies of the File Allocation
Table which is for redundancy checking and specifies how the clusters are assigned.

Data Region: This is where the directory data and existing files are stored. It uses
up the majority of the partition.

Root Directory Region: This region is a directory table that contains the
information about the directories and files. It is used with FAT16 and FAT12 but not with
other FAT file systems. It has a fixed maximum size that is configured when created.
FAT32 usually stores the root directory in the data region so it can be expanded if
needed.

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 File System

File Allocation Table 32 (FAT 32)

FAT32 is a version of the File Allocation Table (FAT) file system that was introduced
by Microsoft in 1996 with its Windows 95 OEM Service Releases 2 (OSR2) operating
system. It is an extension of Microsofts FAT16 file system.

The purpose of FAT32 was to overcome the limitations of FAT16 and add support for
larger media. The major enhancements introduced by FAT32 included support for much
larger volumes, better performance and more flexibility and robustness.

The standard maximum volume size for FAT16 is 2GB, with a cluster size of 32K and
sector size of 512 bytes. FAT32 increases this limit to a significant 2TB by increasing the
number of bits used for cluster addressing. FAT32 reserves 32 bits for each cluster entry,
of which the lower 28 bits are actually used for addressing the clusters.

Other points:

All FAT systems are little endian, which refers to the order the addressing
bytes are stored.
A FAT file system contains four basic regions: (1) reserved, (2) FAT, (3) root
directory and (4) file and data directory region.
FAT32 uses 28 bits for addressing clusters and can address a maximum of
268,435,444 (228 - 12) clusters, as compared to 65,524 maximum addressable
clusters by FAT16.
Maximum file size on FAT32 is 4,294,967,295 (232-1) bytes.
Directories cannot have more than 65,535 files and other directories.
FAT directories are not sorted or indexed. This decreases efficiency for many
operations like creation of new files, when the directory size becomes large.
Unlike FAT12 and FAT16, the root directory in FAT32 can be of variable size and
is a cluster chain, just like any other directory.

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 File System

Extended File Allocation Table (EXFAT)

exFAT (Extended File Allocation Table) is a Microsoft file system optimized for flash
memory such as USB flash drives and SD cards. It is proprietary and Microsoft owns
patents on several elements of its design. exFAT can be used where the NTFS file system
is not a feasible solution (due to data structure overhead), yet the file size limit of the
standard FAT32 file system is unacceptable. exFAT has been adopted by the SD Card
Association as the default file system for SDXC cards larger than 32 GB.
exFAT was first introduced in late 2006 as part of Windows CE 6.0, an embedded
Windows operating system. Most of the vendors signing on for licenses of exFAT are
either for embedded systems or device manufacturers that produce media that will be
preformatted with exFAT. The entire File Allocation Table (FAT) family, exFAT included,
is used for embedded systems because it is lightweight and is better suited for solutions
that have low memory and low power requirements, and can be implemented in
firmware.
exFAT allows individual files larger than 4 GB, facilitating long continuous recording
of HD video which can exceed the 4 GB limit in less than an hour. Current digital
cameras using FAT32 will break the video files into multiple segments of approximately
2 or 4 GB. With the increase of capacity and the increase of data being transferred, the
write operation needs to be made more efficient. SDXC cards, running at UHS-I have a
minimum guaranteed write speed of 10 MBps and exFAT plays a factor in achieving that
throughput through the reduction of the file system overhead in cluster allocation. This
is achieved through the introduction of a cluster bitmap and elimination (or reduction)
of write to the FAT. A single bit in the directory record indicates that the file is
contiguous, telling the exFAT driver to ignore the FAT. This optimization is analogous to
an extent in other file systems, except that it only applies to whole files, as opposed to
contiguous parts of files.
exFAT is also supported in a number of media devices such as modern flat panel TVs,
media centers, and portable media players.
Some vendors of flash media, including USB pen drives, compact flash (CF) and solid
state drives (SSD) are shipping from the factory with some of their high capacity media
pre-formatted with the exFAT file system. For example, Sandisk ships their 256 GB CF
cards as exFAT.

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 File System

New Technology File System (NTFS)

Is the file system that the Windows NT operating system uses for storing and
retrieving files on a hard disk. NTFS is the Windows NT equivalent of the Windows 95
file allocation table (FAT) and the OS/2 High Performance File System (HPFS).

Notable features of NTFS include:

Use of a b-tree directory scheme to keep track of file clusters
Information about a file's clusters and other data is stored with each cluster, not just a
governing table (as FAT is)
Support for very large files (up to 2 to the 64th power or approximately 16
billion bytes in size)
An access control list (ACL) that lets a server administrator control who can access
specific files
Integrated file compression
Support for names based on Unicode
Support for long file names as well as "8 by 3" names
Data security on both removable and fixed disks

Comparing the different file systems (FAT, FAT 32, EXFAT, NTFS)

A file system provides a way of organizing a drive. It specifies how data is stored on
the drive and what types of information can be attached to filesfilenames,
permissions, and other attributes. Windows supports three different file systems. NTFS
is the most modern file system. Windows uses NTFS for its system drive and, by default,
for most non-removable drives. FAT32 is an older file system thats not as efficient as
NTFS and doesnt support as big a feature set, but does offer greater compatibility with
other operating systems. exFAT is a modern replacement for FAT32and more devices
and operating systems support it than NTFSbut its not nearly as widespread as
FAT32.

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 File System

Uses of the file systems (FAT, FAT 32, EXFAT, NTFS)

FAT used when storing the operating system on a hard disk that provides a map of the
clusters that a file has been stored in it. When writing a new file to hard disk, the file is
stored in one or more clusters that are not necessarily next to each other; they may be
rather widely scattered over the disk.

FAT 32 the major purpose of FAT 32 is to reach what FAT 16 cannot do, because FAT
16 has only a cluster with a size of 32K and a sector size of 512 bytes while FAT 32
increases this limit to a significant 2TB by increasing the number of bits used for cluster
addressing.

EXFAT- is used for embedded systems because it is lightweight and is better suited for
solutions that have low memory and low power requirements, and can be implemented
in firmware.

NTFS - used for storing and retrieving files on a hard disk.

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