Summary of operating system file formats

The file system of the operating system is the method and data structure used by the operating system to clarify the files on the disk or partition; that is, the method to organize files on the disk. The file system format is roughly as follows:

Fat
The file system used by the PC is fat16. Like MS-DOS, Win 95 and other systems are using the fat16 file system. Later, the enhanced File System FAT32 was launched in WIN 98. Compared with fat16, FAT32 has the following features:

The maximum advantage of FAT32 compared with fat16 is that it supports 32 GB disks, but it cannot support partitions smaller than MB. FAT32-based Win 2000 supports a maximum partition size of 32 GB, while fat16-based Win 2000 supports a maximum partition size of 4 GB.

NTFS
NTFS file system is a secure-based file system. It is a unique file system structure used by Windows NT. It is built on the basis of protecting file and directory data, an advanced file system that saves storage resources and reduces disk usage.

Exfat
Extended File Allocation Table file system, extended fat, that is, the extended File Allocation Table is

Microsoft introduced in Windows embeded 5.0 or later (including Windows CE 5.0, 6.0, Windows mobile5, 6, and 6.1) a file system suitable for flash memory, to solve the problem that FAT32 does not support 4G and larger files, it is released. For flash memory, the NTFS file system is not suitable for use, and exfat is more suitable.

Ext2
Ext2 is a standard file system in GNU/Linux systems. It features excellent file access performance and better advantages for small and medium files, this mainly relies on the excellent design of its cluster cache layer.

The size of a single file is related to the upper limit of the file system capacity and the cluster size of the file system. In common x86 computer systems, the maximum size of a cluster is 4 kb, the maximum size of a single file is 2048 GB, and the maximum size of the file system is 16384 GB.

Ext3
Ext3 is a log-type file system that extends the ext2 system and is compatible with ext2. The advantage of a log file system is that the file system has a cache layer for operation. If the file system is not used, you must detach the file system so that the data on the cache layer can be written back to the disk. Therefore, when the system is shut down, all its file systems must be shut down before shutdown.

Ext4
Linux Kernel has officially supported the new file system ext4 since 2.6.28. Ext4 is the ultimate version of ext3. It modifies some important data structures in ext3, not just like ext3 for ext2, but adds a log function. Ext4 can provide better performance and reliability, and more features are compatible with ext3.

Btrfs
Btrfs (usually referred to as butter FS) is a copy-on-Write File System announced and in progress by Oracle on December 31, 2007. The goal is to replace the current ext3 File System in Linux and improve the ext3 restrictions, especially the size of a single file, the total file system size or file check, and add features not currently supported by ext3, such as Writable snapshots, snapshots of snapshots, built-in disk array (RAID) support, and subvolumes. Btrfs also claims to focus on "fault tolerance, repair, and ease of Management ".

Zfs
Zfs originated from the file system developed by Sun Microsystems for the Solaris operating system. Zfs is a lightweight file system with high storage capacity, integration of file systems and volume management concepts, and a brand new disk logical structure. It is also a convenient storage pool management system. Zfs is an open-source project authorized by the terms of the cddl protocol.

Hfs
Hfs hierarchical File System (HfS) is a file system developed by Apple and used on Mac OS.

Reiserfs
Reiserfs is a file system format written by Hans Reiser and his team namesys. In July 23, 1997, he published the reiserfs file system on the Internet. The Linux kernel supports reiserfs from version 2.4.1.

JFS
JFS (Journal File System), a byte-level log file system, uses the technology of the database protection system to record file changes in the form of logs. JFS ensures data integrity by recording the file structure rather than the changes in the data itself. This method ensures data accessibility at any time.

Vmfs
VMware Virtual Machine File System (vmfs) is a high-performance cluster file system that allows applications of virtualization technology to exceed the limits of a single system. The design, construction, and optimization of vmfs for the virtual server environment allows multiple virtual machines to access an Integrated Cluster-based storage pool, significantly improving resource utilization. Vmfs is the foundation for virtualization across multiple servers. It enables services such as VMware vmotiontm, distributed resource schedability, and VMWare high availability. Vmfs can also significantly reduce management overhead, which provides an efficient virtualization management layer, especially suitable for large enterprise data centers. Using vmfs enables resource sharing, allowing administrators to easily benefit from higher efficiency and storage utilization.

XFS
XFS is a file system developed by Silicon Graphics, Inc in early 1990s. It is still used as the underlying File System of sgi irix-based products (from workstation to supercomputer. Now, XFS can also be used in Linux. The arrival of the Linux version of XFS is exciting. First of all, it provides a robust, excellent, and functional File System for the Linux community, in addition, the scalability of this file system can meet the most demanding storage requirements.

Ufs
UFS file system: a traditional Unix File System Based on BSD high-speed file system, which is the default file system of Solaris. Ufs logging is enabled by default. In earlier Solaris versions, the UFS logging function can only be manually enabled. Solaris 10 supports multiple tb ufs file systems on 64-bit Solaris kernel systems. Previously, the size of the UFS file system on 64-bit and 32-bit systems was limited to about 1 Tb (tbyte ). Now, all UFS file system commands and utilities have been updated to support multi-tb ufs file systems.

Vxfs
Veritasfilesystem (vxfs) is the first commercial logging file system. With the logging function, metadata changes are first written to logs and then to disks. Since there is no need to write changes in multiple locations and metadata is written asynchronously, the throughput is faster. It is also an extended range-based intent logging file system. It is designed for operating environments that require high performance and availability and can process large volumes of data.