NTFS, should it stay or go?
- Thread starter Edward78
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Soldato
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NTFS isn't great, and yes they're apparently working on WinFS, but tbh iafter reading bits about the development, i'm unsure how different it will be when compared to NTFS, what they seem to be playing around with are things that will affect searching and sorting.
Apple and Linux file systems don't need defragging (as often - but this is debatable still) is because of the way they write to the hard disk, they look for free contignious blocks, rather than the next free block and the one after this etc ending in writing data to multiple places on a hard drive (if the drive has been used a fair bit - deletions etc...).
Once a hard drive gets full though even Ext2/3 can't help but spread data about, this is the one time where defragging *might* help...
Apple and Linux file systems don't need defragging (as often - but this is debatable still) is because of the way they write to the hard disk, they look for free contignious blocks, rather than the next free block and the one after this etc ending in writing data to multiple places on a hard drive (if the drive has been used a fair bit - deletions etc...).
Once a hard drive gets full though even Ext2/3 can't help but spread data about, this is the one time where defragging *might* help...
NTFS is fine. WinFS is just a software layer on top of NTFS, it isn't a whole new file system.
NTFS is actually a very good file system. It is fully transactional and actually supports programmable transactions in version 6 (Vista onwards).
NTFS is no less or more prone to fragmentation than any other B-tree based file system (which any decent file system is built upon). The fastest way to allocate some memory is to find a contiguous block... and that is what NTFS does.
NTFS is actually a very good file system. It is fully transactional and actually supports programmable transactions in version 6 (Vista onwards).
NTFS is no less or more prone to fragmentation than any other B-tree based file system (which any decent file system is built upon). The fastest way to allocate some memory is to find a contiguous block... and that is what NTFS does.
Soldato
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http://www.pcmech.com/article/file-systems-which-need-defragmenting/
Thats what i was trying to get at.
Thats what i was trying to get at.
Crap article. He reckons NTFS isn't journalled when in fact it is... also his conclusion seems like it was plucked from thin air.
I was under the impression that WinFS would have something SQL-ly sitting on top writing to a raw disk thereby enabling easier indexing and searching of/for files/folders. Fearing the worst it could just be a glorified MS Access database 
Soldato
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It was originally going to ship with Vista? But then development costs or issues plus time constraints meant it got dropped? Was meant to be part of a service pack but deffo not SP1 so perhaps SP2 sometime?
Yes I have heard something from someone that contracts to Microsoft and he definately said Service Pack release....
Stelly
As far as I know it has been quietly delayed until Windows 7. Luckily for Microsoft the tech media has been hung up reporting about SP1 and have entirely forgot that WinFS was meant to be apart of the first SP for Vista.
It is basically just a cut-down version of SQL Server that provides indexing for various file types. Basically a more elegantly designed "Indexing Service".
It is basically just a cut-down version of SQL Server that provides indexing for various file types. Basically a more elegantly designed "Indexing Service".
Any OS that provides indexing of files does this essentially. The "Indexing Service" in current versions of Windows may not use SQL Server but it has its own proprietary database format in which it stores its index. No biggie really. What's interesting about WinFS is that being based on SQL Server automatically opens it up to a wide variety of third party programmability and reporting. Microsoft has in the past made the mistake of positioning WinFS in the market as a "user oriented" feature when in fact it is just a technology feature that doesn't really concern users at all. Pretty much the only thing WinFS may do for the user is remove drive letters and other concepts of physical:logical linkages but to be honest I can't see them actually forcing that upon anyone.