ZCompTIA A+ 1102 File Systems

Formatting Data

- before data can be written, it must be formatted
- operating systems expect data to be written in a particular format
- though, many operating systems can read (and sometimes write) multiple file system types

File Allocation Table (acronym)

FAT

FAT

one of the first PC based file systems

versions:
- FAT32
- exFAT

FAT32

- supports 2 TB volume sizes
- maximum file size of 4 GB

Extended File Allocation Table (acronym

exFAT

exFAT

- Microsoft flash drive file system
- files can be larger than 4 GB
- compatible across many operating systems (Windows, Linux, Mac OS)

NT File System (acronym)

NTFS

NTFS

- provides extensive improvements over FAT32
- quotas, file compression, symbolic links, encryption, large file support, etc.
- not very compatible across operating systems
- many will read NTFS, but not write (or will have limited writing functionality)

ext3 and ext4

- file systems commonly used by Linux
- ext4 was an upgrade to ext3, and is also seen in Android OS

Apple File System (acronym)

APFS

APFS

- optimized for SSDs
- features include encryption, snapshots, and increased data integrity