NTFS

NT File System[1]
Developer(s)Microsoft
Full nameNT File System[2]
IntroducedJuly 27, 1993; 31 years ago (1993-07-27) with Windows NT 3.1
Partition IDs0x07 (MBR)
EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7 (GPT)
Structures
Directory contentsB-tree variant[3][4]
File allocationBitmap
Bad blocks$BadClus (MFT Record)
Limits
Max volume size264 clusters − 1 cluster (format);
256 TB[a] − 64 KB[a] (Windows 10 version 1703, Windows Server 2016 or earlier implementation)[5]
8 PB[a] − 2 MB[a] (Windows 10 version 1709, Windows Server 2019 or later implementation)[6]
Max file size16 EB[a] − 1 KB (format);
16 TB − 64 KB (Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 or earlier implementation)[5]
256 TB − 64 KB (Windows 8, Windows Server 2012 or later implementation)[7]
8 PB − 2 MB (Windows 10 version 1709, Windows Server 2019 or later implementation)[6]
Max no. of files4,294,967,295 (232−1)[5]
Max filename length255 UTF-16 code units[8]
Allowed filename
characters
  • In Win32 namespace: any UTF-16 code unit (case-insensitive) except /\:*"?<>| as well as NUL[8]
  • In POSIX namespace: any UTF-16 code unit (case-sensitive) except / as well as NUL
Features
Dates recordedCreation, modification, POSIX change, access
Date range1 January 1601 – 14 Sept 30828 (File times are 64-bit positive signed numbers[9] counting 100-nanosecond intervals (ten million per second) since 1601, which is more than 32,000 years)
Date resolution100 ns
ForksYes (see § Alternate data stream (ADS) below)
AttributesRead-only, hidden, system, archive, not content indexed, off-line, temporary, compressed, encrypted
File system
permissions		ACLs
Transparent
compression		Per-file, LZ77 (Windows NT 3.51 onward)
Transparent
encryption		Per-file,
DESX (Windows 2000 onward),
Triple DES (Windows XP onward),
AES (Windows XP Service Pack 1, Windows Server 2003 onward)
Data deduplicationYes (Windows Server 2012)[10]
Other
Supported
operating systems		Windows NT 3.1 and later
Mac OS X 10.3 and later (read-only)
Linux kernel version 2.6 and later
Linux kernel versions 2.2-2.4 (read-only)
FreeBSD
NetBSD
OpenBSD (read-only)
ChromeOS
Solaris
ReactOS (read-only)

NT File System (NTFS) (commonly called New Technology File System) is a proprietary journaling file system developed by Microsoft in the 1990s.[11][12][2]

It was developed to overcome scalability, security and other limitations with FAT.[13] NTFS adds several features that FAT and HPFS lack including: access control lists (ACLs); filesystem encryption; transparent compression; sparse files; file system journaling and volume shadow copy, a feature that allows backups of a system while in use.

Starting with Windows NT 3.1, it is the default file system of the Windows NT family superseding the File Allocation Table (FAT) file system.[14] NTFS read/write support is available on Linux and BSD using NTFS3 in Linux and NTFS-3G in BSD.[15][16]

NTFS uses several files hidden from the user to store metadata about other files stored on the drive which can help improve speed and performance when reading data.[1]

  1. ^ a b Karresand, Martin; Axelsson, Stefan; Dyrkolbotn, Geir Olav (2019-07-01). "Using NTFS Cluster Allocation Behavior to Find the Location of User Data". Digital Investigation. 29: –51–S60. doi:10.1016/j.diin.2019.04.018. hdl:11250/2631756. ISSN 1742-2876. S2CID 199004263.
  2. ^ a b "Glossary". [MS-EFSR]: Encrypting File System Remote (EFSRPC) Protocol. Microsoft. 14 November 2013.
  3. ^ "How NTFS Works". TechNet. Microsoft. 8 October 2009. Retrieved 2 December 2017.
  4. ^ "B*Trees - NTFS Directory Trees - Concept - NTFS Documentation". flatcap.org. Archived from the original on 2019-05-13. Retrieved 2019-05-13.
  5. ^ a b c "How NTFS Works". Windows Server 2003 Technical Reference. 2003-03-28. Retrieved 2011-09-12.
  6. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference MS-FSA_id_1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ "Appendix A: Product Behavior". [MS-FSA]: File System Algorithms. Microsoft. 14 November 2013. Retrieved 2012-09-21.
  8. ^ a b Russon, Richard; Fledel, Yuval. "NTFS Documentation" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2022-10-09. Retrieved 2011-06-26.
  9. ^ "SYSTEMTIME structure (minwinbase.h)". Microsoft. October 5, 2021. Retrieved January 7, 2024.
  10. ^ Rick Vanover (14 September 2011). "Windows Server 8 data deduplication". Archived from the original on 2016-07-18. Retrieved 2011-12-02.
  11. ^ Sammes, Tony; Jenkinson, Brian, eds. (2007), "The New Technology File System", Forensic Computing, London: Springer, pp. 215–275, doi:10.1007/978-1-84628-732-9_6, ISBN 978-1-84628-732-9, retrieved 2024-08-14
  12. ^ Weiss, David (2022-08-01). "What Is NTFS and How Does It Work?". Datto. Retrieved 2024-08-14.
  13. ^ "New Technology File System - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics". www.sciencedirect.com. Retrieved 2024-08-14.
  14. ^ Custer, Helen (1994). Inside the Windows NT File System. Microsoft Press. ISBN 978-1-55615-660-1.
  15. ^ "NTFS3 — The Linux Kernel documentation". www.kernel.org. Retrieved 2021-12-02.
  16. ^ "ntfs-3g". www.freebsd.org. Retrieved 2021-12-02.


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