NTFS - New Technology File System with Enhanced Features

New Technology file system (NTFS) was introduced with Windows NT operating system by Microsoft. It is an improvement over FAT file system to store data on hard disk in fast and secured way. In This article we will discuss about NTFS file system overview, its versions, features and problems with NTFS file system.

Overview of NTFS File System

NTFS file system become the primary file system in latest operating systems like windows 10, like win10, 8, and 7. Apart from this, NTFS is still used in older versions of Windows like in XP/Vista/2000 and Windows NT. NTFS file system introduced with improved performance, scalability in comparison to its precursor. It utilizes the disk space efficiently by using smaller size of clusters. NTFS formatted disks supports maximum 255 characters as file name, maximum partition size up to 2TB. It also supports the files with size of 16 TB maximum.

Overview of NTFS File System

Versions of NTFS File System

NTFS v1.0: The very first version of NTFS released with Windows NT 3.1 by Microsoft.
NTFS v1.2: This was the second release of NTFS file system, and it was released with Windows NT 3.51. This version came with an impressive feature called Access Control List.
NTFS v3.0: This version was introduced with Windows 2000, and it supports many features like disk quotas, Encrypting File System, sparse files, reparse points, update sequence number (USN) journaling.
NTFS v3.1: Version 3.1 was released with windows XP, this version announced with a great feature named as MFT (master file table), so that damaged or inaccessible file can be recovered.

Features of NTFS File System

NTFS file system uses B-Tree directory scheme to keep track of all file clusters which improves the performance.
NTFS provides the self-healing feature which detects the errors and bad sectors on disks and repair all disk related issues without having to run CHKDSK.
Access control list is another impressive feature of NTFS file system which enables administrator that can set permissions for a specific file or folder.
NTFS file system is reliable because it performs recovery operation automatically. If an unexpected shutdown occurs then NTFS correct inconsistent data by transaction log and journal file.
File compression is also a feature provided by NTFS file system, which enables user to compress large files and save the disk space.

Issues in NTFS File System

In spite of self-healing feature, NTFS file system can cause data loss. Besides, data loss problem occurs when users delete files and folders accidentally by pressing Shift+Del or emptying recycle bin. The other main reason behind missing data is malware infection which secretly delete files. Sudden power failure, hard disk failure are also some issues when files may get lost. If data gets lost, corrupt, or become inaccessible, then user needs to recover lost data from the backup. In some cases there is no backup then user can recover their data by Windows File Recovery Software. It can recover all deleted, corrupted or inaccessible files and folders.