How Come Something'S Hardware Platform Can Be But The File System Is Ntfs Professional Technology Support

Tim Fisher has 30 years professional technology support experience.

He writes troubleshooting content and is the General Manager of Lifewire.

Computers use particular kinds of file systems to store and organize data on media, such as a hard drive, the CDs, DVDs, and BDs in an optical drive or on a flash drive.

A file system can be thought of as an index or database containing the physical location of every piece of data on the hard drive or another storage device.

Any place that a computer or other electronic device stores data employs some type of file system.

This includes your Windows computer, your Mac, your smartphone, your banks ATMeven the computer in your car.

The Microsoft Windows operating systems have always supported various versions of the FAT file system.

FAT stands for File Allocation Table, a term that describes what it does: maintains a table of each files space allocation.

In addition to FAT, all Windows operating systems since Windows NT support a newer file system called NTFS New Technology File System.

All modern versions of Windows also support exFAT, which is designed for flash drives.

How Come Something'S Hardware Platform Can Be But The File System Is Ntfs Windows 10 And Windows

ReFS (Resilient File System) is a newer file system for Windows 10 and Windows 8 that includes features not available with NTFS, but its currently limited in several ways.

Sectors marked as unused can store data, typically in groups of sectors called blocks.

Its the file system that identifies the size and position of the files as well as which sectors are ready to be used.

Without a structure for organizing files, it not only would be next to impossible to remove installed programs and retrieve specific files, but no two files could exist with the same name because everything might be in the same folder (which is one reason folders are so useful).

The file IMG123.jpg can exist in hundreds of folders because each folder is used to separate the file, so there isnt a conflict.

However, files cant bear the same name if theyre in the same directory.

A file system doesnt just store the files but also information about them, like the sector block size, fragment information, file size, attributes, file name, file location, and directory hierarchy.

Some operating systems other than Windows also take advantage of FAT and NTFS but many different kinds of file systems dot the operating-system horizon, like HFS used in Apple product like iOS and macOS.

Wikipedia has a comprehensive list of file systems if youre more interested in the topic.

Sometimes, the term file system is used in the context of partitions.

For example, saying there are two file systems on my hard drive doesnt mean that the drive is split between NTFS and FAT, but that there are two separate partitions that use the same physical disk.

How Come Something'S Hardware Platform Can Be For Mac But The File System Is Ntfs