Talk:File system

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[edit] Abbreviations

The use of abbreviations in the opening few paragraphs of this article is horrific and makes it virtually unreadable to a layperson. 217.43.149.147 (talk) 02:02, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Archive

I exhaustively archived this talk page. Someone may want to split that into multiple archives, as archive one is very long. Also, someone with extra free time might want to resurrect any posts in there that are worth keeping here, as that discussion archive is quite a time capsule of this page.

--SuperLuigi 31 15:59, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Transactional NTFS

Shouldn't it point to WinFS? countryhacker 11:52, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Only if it's the same thing as WinFS. WinFS, from all I've seen (including stuff on MSDN), runs on top of NTFS; perhaps the database for the items in WinFS uses transactional features in "NT 6.x"'s NTFS, but I don't think they're the same thing. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Guy Harris (talk • contribs) 08:57, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

So is "Transactional NTFS" really the same thing as "WinFS"? Microsoft's MSDN information on Transactional NTFS seems to indicate that it's just a scheme to let applications construct transactions on NTFS; it "allows an application to group multiple operations on multiple files as a single unit—a transaction", so that "an application can then commit or roll back the entire group of changes as a single unit".

And is WinFS really a file system in the same sense as other file systems here? Or is it a storage system built atop SQL Server, with the SQL Server database stored in ordinary NTFS? Guy Harris 05:08, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

WinFS is not a file system in the vein of NTFS, HFS+, ext3, etc. The WinFS article has received a number of updates recently which should help clarify the difference. Warrens 01:16, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Transactional NTFS is not WinFS, it is a mode of operation of NTFS where an application can attach multiple file handles to a transaction object, then perform a series of operations, and NTFS will guarantee either they all commit, or none of them complete. It provides full transactional integrity of both the filesystem metadata and user data involved. --Aaaaa0 13:45, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] folder vs. directory vs. sub-directory

Readers need to understand that these three terms all refer to the same thing. *** I was surprised to see the term "folder" specifically mentioned in relation to Windows -- I thought it was more of a Mac thing originally? 69.87.200.105 14:25, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Facilities

The example given "interprocess pipes in Unix have to be implemented outside of the file system because the pipes concept does not offer truncation from the beginning of files.", seems a bit specious, since file-system FIFO pipes ARE present in Unix. It would make more sense here to give a functional reason (with references), probably one or more of omitting such symmetry in service to performance, faster implementation, or some other constraint. Certainly both prepending and arbitrary insertion CAN be implemented in a filesystem keeping tracks of data blocks by, say, doubly-linked lists. The problem is that read speed would be terrible after a while with the read head having to run all over the disk drive to find the scattered blocks. Etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Siodhe (talk • contribs) 16:58, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] move Plan 9

I am impressed with the article, at first sight -- but the Plan 9 material seems excessive, in context; seems like it should move to its own article, and be briefly summarized here. 69.87.200.105 14:25, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] article Talk redirect confusion

There are two separate articles, File system and Comparison of file systems, but the talk for Comparison redirects here! Very confusing!! I don't think it is good, but if the two articles are going to be so joined at the hip, they each need to say so at the top and the bottom of each, and the combined talk page needs to clearly explain what is going on, at the top and the bottom. 69.87.203.23 23:48, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Split: this has confused me, too. Someone ought to archive and/or split this page, and remove the redirect from Talk:Comparison of file systems. Even though the articles are related, they are still separate articles and ought to be discussed separately. -- intgr 14:58, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
What happened (which you apparently were not around for) was that the File system and Comparison of file systems articles were briefly merged around the middle of 2006, and then hastily unmerged when this turned out to be a controversial idea. However, because of the way the merge was done, the history of Talk:Comparison of file systems was lost, and the rediret pointing to Talk:File system was never undone. I think this mess requires an admin's attention to untangle. 121a0012 03:12, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I have split the page now, as there have been no disagreements for two months, and this has only been causing confusion. See Talk:Comparison of file systems. -- intgr 11:35, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] {{editprotected}} request

{{editprotected}} I think, that phrase "The /mnt directory exists on many Unix-like systems (as specified in the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard) and is intended specifically for use as a mount point for temporary media like floppy disks or CDs." better say as "The /mnt directory exists on many Unix-like systems (as specified in the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard) and is intended specifically for use as a temporary mount point."

FHS directly said (http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#MNTMOUNTPOINTFORATEMPORARILYMOUNT), that /mnt is a point for temporary mounts. But mount point for temporary media is /media (http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#MEDIAMOUNTPOINT).

P.S. Sorry for my poor English, I'm not a native speaker.

I've removed protection. Cheers. --MZMcBride 23:07, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] History section?!

 Please help improve this article or section by expanding it.
Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. (October 2007)

Is there somebody knowledgeable && enthusiastic enough to add a good history section?
217.236.209.212 20:57, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I was actually going to request the same thing. -- Beland 22:19, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Definition

I have a problem with the reference to hierarchical organisation in the formal defintion: "More formally, a file system is a set of abstract data types that are implemented for the storage, hierarchical organization..." While most file systems employ tree-like organisation I don't see why file systems are formally defined to not be able to use other methods. --The Extremist [User, Talk] 08:17, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] NTFS/FAT table

The table at the bottom of the page showing NTFS and FAT filesytem limits, etc is not accurate.

  • There are multiple versions of NTFS, and it's been around a lot longer than since 2000.
  • FAT16 is missing.
  • NTFS is listed as being readable only by Windows but writable by Linux and OSX aswell... In fact the 2 rows should probably be merged into "supported OSes" (with a "*" note for readonly support if required).

Supertin (talk) 01:03, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Crash Counting Merge

The crash counting merge tag on this article has been there forever. Why doesn't an administrator go ahead and do the merge already? Just how long is this process supposed to take? Public Menace (talk) 19:23, 26 January 2008 (UTC)


IMHO this (File system) article is already difficult to navigate and understand (it's a complicated topic).

Crash counting is a technique used to preserve file system consistency not a file system .

The article on the SPAD is mostly a reference to a PDF (very unsuitable for reading online)

I would think that adding it to List_of_file_systems would be more appropriate, I will do that.

DGerman (talk) 23:07, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Filesystem = Specialized Database

There seems to be some confusion here about the relationship between file systems and databases. A file system is a database since it stores records (files) in a structured way. This is the definition of a database. I am not aware of anyone ever suggesting that a file system is not a specialized database, and there is no citation disputing this. It seems a little silly to say that Berkeley DB is a database and MySQL is a database but that somehow hierarchical access makes a file system lose its database credentials. On the other hand, the common use of "database" is a RDBMS, and neither Berkeley DB (which is a flat mapping of record keys to records) nor a file system qualifies. So saying that it is "debatable" whether to call a file system a "specialized database" is not correct at all, and calling a file system a database (without qualification) is a matter of convention and preference, not a real debate.169.229.200.176 (talk) 19:51, 9 June 2008 (UTC)