Talk:NTFS

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[edit] ntfsprogs

ntfsmount is a part of ntfsprogs. Why don't we replace "ntfsmount" with "ntfsprogs"?. There is also other programs in the ntfsprogs project. For instance, there is ntfsresize. --Ysangkok 20:39, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What is Difference between NTFS & FAT32..

What is Difference between NTFS & FAT32.. does it effects the speed for those who use heavy video conversions —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 125.99.255.26 (talk) 12:00, 12 May 2007 (UTC).

FAT32 is faster for the same cluster size unless you have too many files. Bigger cluster size is better. But for very large disks, even if you only have one file, you have to use NTFS, so you may not have a choice. NTFS has more features. NTFS handles folders with thousands of files faster. Big hard disks are always faster than small hard disks, so a very large hard disk with very large clusters will be faster than your old disk even if your old disk has FAT32.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.214.18.240 (talk • contribs) 11:49, June 10, 2007


ALSO fat32 cant handle single files over a certain size (4gb?) whereas NTFS can handle much bigger files. so if you are handling huge video files , NTFS is better. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.16.160.17 (talk) 10:29, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Reliability of Paragon's NTFS for Linux driver

There is/was a sentence which reads: "NTFS for Linux: Full write support is available using Paragon's NTFS for Linux driver, although criticised for leaving many errors on the volume when mounted read-write.[citation needed]" And naturally enough someone requested a citation. I've looked around and could not quickly (5 min) find any supporting evidence for criticising the driver for leaving many errors. On the contrary I found an article ['In the Window' (166KB PDF] from http://www.linux-magazine.com dated January 2007 in which they praise the driver and it's documentation and utilities, though questioning the price. So I am going to remove the critical part of that paragraph. If this decision is wrong please provide at least one well-informed citation before reverting. --Duncan nz 10:29, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] NTFS has 5 versions

In what sense did it have 5 versions, if 1 and 1.1 were never released, and are not discussed? Or why not 6 versions, wasn't there an equally undistinguished version 2? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.214.18.240 (talk • contribs) 11:36, June 10, 2007

[edit] macFUSE

can someone explain how macFUSE would help me write from my macbook pro (intel chip) to my NTFS external? I saw that as an option somewhere but I don't see "macFUSE" listed any where in the article after doing cmd+f for "macfuse." Thanks. Tkjazzer 03:45, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Replaced FAT?

Should that statement be ore specific? I'm not sure if NTFS replaced FAT16 entirely or the FAT format. NTFS is only used in Windows NT. I will look into that. A Raider Like Indiana 19:34, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

NTFS replaced FAT as the default filesystem in Windows. But not in general. XP wont even let you format an USB stick in NTFS (but only FAT). --Xerces8 09:39, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Transparent Compression or maybe not ?

The compression is not transparent as said in the already used reference nr 16 MS KB 251186 :

Programs such as Microsoft Message Queuing (also known as MSMQ) do not work with NTFS compression.

Also see this VMware forum thread VMware eats up disk space, chkdsk needed

--Xerces8 14:41, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Use in USB flash drive

Is it possible to format a USB flash drive with NTFS? If so, how? Stayman Apple (talk) 20:40, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

This is a discussion page on how to improve the article, not a tech support page. --Yamla (talk) 20:42, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
Well, if it isn't possible, we probably should mention that in the article. Stayman Apple (talk) 20:53, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
It's possible. Search google. --Yamla (talk) 20:54, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Versions

The text now reads:

NTFS has five versions:

   * v1.0
   * v1.1
   * v1.2 found in NT 3.51 and NT 4
   * v3.0 found in Windows 2000
   * v3.1 found in Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Vista

These final three versions are sometimes referred to as v5.0, v5.1, and v6.0, after the version of Windows NT with which they ship. Each newer version added extra features, for example Windows 2000 introduced quotas while Windows Vista introduced Transactional NTFS, NTFS symbolic links, and self-healing functionality.[7]

"These final three versions" can't be right.

a) That would mean that v.1.2 is sometimes referred to as v.5.0 after NT 4.

b) If, indeed, as the text states, v3.1 is found in XP, 2003, and Vista, then we are saying that v3.1 is sometimes referred to as v5.1 after XP and 2003 and that v3.1 is also sometimes referred to as v6.0 after Vista.

That could be. I don't have Vista, so can't check what version of NTFS is shipped with Vista. A bit of web surfing and searching turned up no answer. (Above there is mention of a reference that indicates Vista uses NTFS v3.1; but at this time the response of the referenced server is too slow to please Firefox.)

    --Joaquin  —Preceding comment was added at 01:00, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
The comment was corrupted by some intermediate change. A quick check back to January finds this wording:
  * v3.1 found in Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and in current pre-release versions of Windows Vista
  These final three versions are sometimes referred to as v4.0, v5.0, and v5.1, after the version of Windows
  with which they ship. Each newer version added extra features, for example Windows 2000 introduced quotas.
...so there's more to research before fixing the text Tedickey (talk) 01:11, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

I just ran fsutil on my Vista Ultimate laptop, and it reported NTFS v3.1:

C:\Windows\system32>ver

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.0.6000]

C:\Windows\system32>fsutil fsinfo ntfsinfo C:
NTFS Volume Serial Number :       0xde7067487067270d
Version :                         3.1
...

Note that fsutil requires admin rights, so in Vista you need to load cmd.exe as Administrator. If you have a shortcut to cmd.exe, right-click on it and choose Run As Administrator. Or do a search for cmd.exe, and run it as an admin. I couldn't get the oft-quoted Control-Shift-Enter trick to work in the release version of Vista. — EagleOne\Talk 07:08, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Meta Files

I don't know much about NTFS but I'm sure that the last entry in the metafiles table is incorrect "pagefile.sys beginning of file entries." pagefile.sys is the virtual memory swap file. Kahurangikea (talk) 21:05, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

You're right, it's not a metafile. It's an "ordinary" file albeit, handled specially by the OS. I placed it there to show how the next files look. After pagefile.sys comes the \WINDOWS directory and its subdirectories. Perhaps the comment for pagefile.sys isn't pointed enough about how it's not a metafile? —EncMstr 22:46, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Turkish I

Which file names are different: 1. FILENAME.txt; 2. FİLENAME.txt;3:25, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Huh? #1 and #2 look identical and #3 and #4 do too. Under windows 32, these all refer to the same file. Under POSIX, they refer to two separate files. What's that have to do with Turkish? —EncMstr 17:00, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
If you look closely (and have the appropriate fonts) you'll see that two of the filenames use the Turkish dotted and dotless I. On my XP SP2 system, the two Turkish names are considered distinct from each other and from the ASCII name (which is of course case-insensitive). I don't know why. -- BenRG (talk) 19:25, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
Oh! I overlooked the dot-over-the-i differences. Thanks for pointing that out. (Perhaps I'm crippled by English?) Under win32, files 1 and 3 map to the same name; the others are distinct:
 2008-02-06  11:58                 5 FILENAME.txt
 2008-02-06  11:58                 5 FILENAME.txt
 2008-02-06  11:59                 5 Filename.txt
                3 File(s)             15 bytes
The command line dir display apparently strips the accents, but they are clearly different files. The names show up okay in a gui display. —EncMstr 20:05, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Which file names are different under the Turkish version of Windows XP? --88.78.6.67 (talk) 15:00, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't have a Turkish XP handy, though I might have Turkish NT 4.0.... The experiment above was on English XP SP2. Files 1, 2, and 4 are distinct. File 3 maps to the same name as 1. Note that is a feature of the win32 subsystem, and not of NTFS which would see all four names distinctly. —EncMstr 18:04, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] update on fat32 article required?

after reading this article, the article on fat32 seems outdated. Am I correct about this? If so, an update is desperately needed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 145.221.52.69 (talk • contribs) 11:37, March 17, 2008

[edit] B-trees vs. B+ trees

A revert just occurred which removed a nicely cited assertion of the directory structure using B-trees. I remember reading the article when it said B+ trees and didn't think anything about it. Now that I've actually read the tree articles, I can confirm that NTFS actually uses the former. If a parent node lists a file, that filename will not (re)appear in its children. Perhaps it changed along the way? Highly unlikely methinks. —EncMstr 20:06, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

My reading of the url which mentioned B-trees is that it did not go into any technical detail, and just mentioned B-trees to give some background - useless for the purpose it was given (and as noted, it's easy enough to find articles which say it's a B+ tree). To resolve the disagreement, it's necessary to find a suitably detailed description. Tedickey (talk) 20:17, 16 April 2008 (UTC)


Just leave it as a B+ tree. Most articles about NTFS say ntfs uses B+ trees and a B+ tree is just a specialized version of a b-tree.--Thunderpenguin (talk) 21:56, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

it says b-trees on the offical microsoft website and they did create ntfs so leave it as b-tree.--24.218.246.100 (talk) 00:58, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

There you go : An MS reference that says its a B+ tree. --soum talk 04:37, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

So what should we do then? There is a link to b-trees and B+ trees. Maybe reading the source code of ntfs3g will help?--Thunderpenguin (talk) 23:18, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Russinovich's reference is self-contradictory. His diagram clearly shows a B-tree, though his text calls it a B+ tree. Perhaps he was confused as to which is which. Or—maybe—the Wikipedia articles are wrong? —EncMstr (talk) 00:04, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
All B+ trees are B-trees, so it's not necessarily contradictory. It's like labelling a picture 'mammal' in one place and 'human' in another. --Yamla (talk) 00:18, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
Calling Mark Russinovich as "confused" is going a little too much. :-P As the man who is arguably the most knowledgible about the internal workings of Windows, I don't believe he is confused. Also given the number of utilities he wrote that works with internal NTFS structures, I cannot believe that they would work if they were written with the assumption NTFS uses B+ trees where they really used B-trees. Plus, do a little Google search, many sites that describe the internal structures of NTFS say its a B+ tree. Not everyone can be wrong.
Coming back to the diagram, as Yamla said, it looks like a B-tree because all B+ trees are B-trees. But that does not rule it out from being a B+ tree. There is no information to suggest that d.new, h.txt and i.doc are records. They could very well be keys for a certain record block. Consider a scenario where these files existed as records, then this structure is a valid B+ tree. Now, when those files got deleted, there is no need to delete the keys that referred to those files. B+ tree by definition allows keys to be present which are not part of the record. So, even in that case, the diagram is a valid B+ tree. --soum talk 05:30, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

and reading the ntfs-3g source code it says b+ trees.--Thunderpenguin (talk) 23:32, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] logfile vs journal

is a logfile the same thing as a journal? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Thunderpenguin (talk • contribs) 19:09, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Not quite. The NTFS logfile is a journal of file system changes. It does not contain most data changes. That is, the creation of a file is logged and can be rolled back if necessary (for example, if creation of its index entry failed). Data written into the file is not normally in the log file. —EncMstr (talk) 19:32, 12 May 2008 (UTC)