NTFS
| Developer(s) | Microsoft |
|---|---|
| Full name | NT File System[2] |
| Introduced | July 27, 1993 with Windows NT 3.1 |
| Partition IDs | 0x07 (MBR) EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7 (GPT) |
| Structures | |
| Directory contents | B-tree variant[3][4] |
| File allocation | Bitmap |
| Bad blocks | $BadClus (MFT Record) |
| Limits | |
| Max volume size | 264 clusters − 1 cluster (format); 256 TB[a] − 64 KB[a] (Windows 10 version 1703, Windows Server 2016 or earlier implementation)[3] 8 PB[a] − 2 MB[a] (Windows 10 version 1709, Windows Server 2019 or later implementation)[5] |
| Max file size | 16 EB[a] − 1 KB (format); 16 TB − 64 KB (Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 or earlier implementation)[3] 256 TB − 64 KB (Windows 8, Windows Server 2012 or later implementation)[6] 8 PB − 2 MB (Windows 10 version 1709, Windows Server 2019 or later implementation)[5] |
| Max no. of files | 4,294,967,295 (232−1)[3] |
| Max filename length | 255 UTF-16 code units[7] |
| Allowed filename characters | |
| Features | |
| Dates recorded | Creation, modification, POSIX change, access |
| Date range | 1 January 1601 – 14 Sept 30828 or 28 May 60056 (File times are 64-bit numbers counting 100-nanosecond intervals (ten million per second) from 1601)[b] |
| Date resolution | 100 ns |
| Forks | Yes (see § Alternate data stream (ADS) below) |
| Attributes | Read-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 deduplication | Yes (Windows Server 2012)[8] |
| 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.[9][10][2]
It was developed to overcome scalability, security and other limitations with FAT.[11] 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.[12] NTFS read/write support is available on Linux and BSD using NTFS3 in Linux and NTFS-3G in both Linux and BSD.[13][14][15]
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]
NTFS was slated to be replaced by WinFS, one of the anchor features of the Longhorn platform, however WinFS was cancelled after Microsoft was unable to resolve performance problems with the filesystem.
- ^ 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.
- ^ a b "Glossary". [MS-EFSR]: Encrypting File System Remote (EFSRPC) Protocol. Microsoft. 14 November 2013.
- ^ a b c d "How NTFS Works". Windows Server 2003 Technical Reference. Microsoft. 8 October 2009. Retrieved 25 January 2025.
- ^ "B*Trees – NTFS Directory Trees – Concept – NTFS Documentation". flatcap.org. Archived from the original on 2019-05-13. Retrieved 2019-05-13.
- ^ a b Cite error: The named reference
MS-FSA_id_1was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ "Appendix A: Product Behavior". [MS-FSA]: File System Algorithms. Microsoft. 14 November 2013. Retrieved 2012-09-21.
- ^ a b Russon, Richard; Fledel, Yuval. "NTFS Documentation" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2022-10-09. Retrieved 2011-06-26.
- ^ Rick Vanover (14 September 2011). "Windows Server 8 data deduplication". Archived from the original on 2016-07-18. Retrieved 2011-12-02.
- ^ "The New Technology File System". Forensic Computing. 2007. pp. 215–275. doi:10.1007/978-1-84628-732-9_6. ISBN 978-1-84628-397-0.
- ^ Weiss, David (2022-08-01). "What Is NTFS and How Does It Work?". Datto. Retrieved 2024-08-14.
- ^ Hassan, Nihad Ahmad; Hijazi, Rami (2017). "Data Hiding Under Windows® OS File Structure". Data Hiding Techniques in Windows OS. pp. 97–132. doi:10.1016/B978-0-12-804449-0.00004-X. ISBN 978-0-12-804449-0.
- ^ Custer, Helen (1994). Inside the Windows NT File System. Microsoft Press. ISBN 978-1-55615-660-1.
- ^ "NTFS3 — The Linux Kernel documentation". www.kernel.org. Retrieved 2021-12-02.
- ^ "ntfs-3g". www.freebsd.org. Retrieved 2021-12-02.
- ^ Arch Linux - ntfs-3g 2022.10.3-1 (x86_64)
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