Comparison of file systems
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The following table compares general and technical information for a number of file systems. Please see the individual file system articles for further information.
| File system: | NTFS | FAT32 | Mac OS X UFS | HFS+ | ext2 | ext3 | ReiserFS | XFS | JFS | FFS | Be File System | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Creator | Microsoft, Gary Kimura, Tom Miller | Microsoft | Apple | Apple | Rémy Card | Stephen Tweedie | Namesys | SGI | IBM | Marshall McKusick | Be Inc., D. Giampaolo, C. Meurillon | ||
| Original operating system | Windows NT | Windows 9510 | Mac OS X | Mac OS | Linux | Linux | Linux | IRIX | AIX11 | BSD | BeOS | ||
| Limits | |||||||||||||
| Maximum filename length | 255 bytes | 255 bytes | ? | 255 characters1 | 255 bytes | 255 bytes | 4032 bytes/255 characters | 255 bytes | ? | ? | ? | ||
| Allowable filename characters | Space plus any printable except\ / : ? * " > < | | Space plus any printable except\ / : ? * " > < | | Any Non-null except / | Any Unicode2 except : | Any Non-null except / | Any Non-null except / | Any Non-null except / | Any Non-null except / | ? | Any Non-null except / | ? | ||
| Maximum pathname length | 32767 bytes | at least 260 bytes | ? | ? | No limit defined3 | No limit defined3 | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ||
| Maximum file size | 16EB | 4GB | ? | 8EB | 16GB to 2TB4 | 16GB to 2TB4 | 8TB8 | 9EB9 | 8EB | 8TB | ? | ||
| Maximum volume size | 16EB | 2-8TB4,7 | ? | ? | 2TB to 32TB4 | 2TB to 32TB4 | 16TB | 9EB9 | 512TB to 4PB4 | ? | ? | ||
| Features | |||||||||||||
| File type metadata | None (file extensions) | None (file extensions) | rich (type and creator) | rich (type and creator) | None (file extensions or magic numbers) | None (file extensions or magic numbers) | ? | rich (extended attributes) | ? | None (file extensions) | rich | ||
| Stores file owner | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||
| POSIX file permissions | No5 | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||
| Access control lists | Yes | No | No | No | No6 | No6 | No6 | No6 | No6 | No | No | ||
| Hard links | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||
| Soft links | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||
| Alternate data stream / resource fork | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | ||
| Journaling | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | ||
| File system: | NTFS | FAT32 | Mac OS X UFS | HFS+ | ext2 | ext3 | ReiserFS | XFS | JFS | FFS | Be File System | ||
Notes
1 Older versions of HFS only supported 31 character filenames; some older applications don't work well with names longer than this.
2 HFS+ mandates support for an escape sequence to allow arbitrary Unicode. Users of older software might see the escape sequences instead of the desired characters.
3 An OS might impose its own limit on the length of absolute pathnames, but unlimited nesting depth can be obtained using relative pathnames.
4 Depending on block/cluster size.
5 NTFS access control lists can express essentially any access policy possible using simple POSIX file permissions, but use of a POSIX-like interface is not supported without an add-on such as Services for UNIX or Cygwin.
6 Often shipped along with widely-used add-on offering this feature
7 While FAT32 partitions this large work fine once created, some software won't allow creation of FAT32 partitions larger than 32GB. This includes, notoriously, the Windows XP installation program.
8 ReiserFS has a theoretical maximum file size of 1EB, but "page cache limits this to 8 Ti on architectures with 32 bit int"[1]
9 XFS has a limitation under Linux 2.4 of 64 TB file size and 2 TB file system size. This limitation is not present under IRIX.
10 Microsoft first introduced FAT32 in Windows 95 OSR2 (OEM Service Release 2) and then later in Windows 98.
11 JFS originated on AIX and was completely rewritten for OS/2. The Linux filesystem was based on the OS/2 version.
