Learn Windows XP Professional: Administration of Resources (Page 4) Page 4

Default NTFS File System Cluster Sizes

In summary,
the advantages of NTFS 5 are as follows:

• NTFS
  uses standard transaction logging and recovery techniques.
  By using the log file and checkpoint information to
  automatically restore the consistency of the file system
  in the event of a failure, NTFS, for the most part,
  maintains the consistency of the data on the volume and
  the volume itself.
• NTFS
  supports compression on volumes, folders, and files. Files
  that are compressed on an NTFS volume can be read and
  written by any Windows-based application without first
  being decompressed by another program. Decompression
  happens automatically (think of a ZIP utility on-the-fly)
  during the file read. The file is compressed again when it
  is closed or saved.
• NTFS
  does not restrict the number of entries to 512 in the root
  folder.
• Windows
  2000 and Windows XP can format partitions up to 2
  terabytes using NTFS.
• NTFS
  manages disk space efficiently by using smaller clusters
  (see the cluster table).
• The boot
  sector is backed up to a sector at the end of the volume.
  
• You can
  set permissions on shares, folders, and files that specify
  which groups and users have access, and what level of
  access is permitted on NTFS partitions.
• NTFS
  supports a native encryption system, (EFS), to prevent
  unauthorized access to file contents.
• Reparse
  points enable new features such as volume mount points.
  
• Disk
  quotas can be set to limit the amount of usage allowed by
  end users.
• NTFS
  uses a change journal to track changes made to files.
  
• NTFS
  supports distributed link tracking to maintain the
  integrity of shortcuts and OLE links.
• NTFS
  supports sparse files so that very large files can be
  written to disk while requiring only a small amount of
  storage space.

There are
also a few notable disadvantages to NTFS, as outlined below.

• NTFS
  volumes are not locally accessible from MS-DOS, Windows
  95, Windows 98 and Windows Millennium Edition operating
  systems.
• Many
  advanced features of NTFS included with version 5 are not
  available in Windows NT.
• On small
  partitions with mostly small files, the overhead of
  managing the NTFS file system can cause a slight performance drop in
  comparison to FAT.
• Floppy
  disks cannot be formatted as NTFS

[NOTES
FROM THE FIELD] –
There is no test requirement to memorize the NTFS tables
either, but again, it’s good to understand the “how and why”
of it. Also, it is never a “best practice” to dual boot any
workstation or server that has sensitive data on it with any
file system installed that cannot secure those files or any
operating system that threatens that security. This would
include even NTFS if older versions and newer versions of
NTFS are running and one “degrades” the security strength of
the other.

For
more detailed answers to questions about the NTFS File
System, you can look up the information in the Microsoft
Windows XP Professional Resource Kit Documentation, which
can also be found

online.

NTFS
stands for
New
Technology File System.

The
maximum single file size on a NTFS partition is 16 EB
(exabytes), in theory.