File Systems & Features

Question 1

What are disk partitions?

Answer 1

▪ Divisions of a Hard Disk Drive (HDD) or Solid-State Drive (SSD), each acting as a separate logical unit of separation within a single physical drive

Question 2

What is the primary partition refered to as in Windows?

Answer 2

The primary partition is typically labeled as the C: drive, and this is where
the Windows operating system is usually installed

Question 3

Describe NTFS.

Answer 3

▪ New Technology File System (NTFS)
● Default file system for modern Windows systems that uses a 64bit addressing scheme and supports file-level security, transactions, encryption, compression, and large file size

Question 4

Describe FAT32.

Answer 4

▪ File Allocation Table (FAT32)
● Was introduced by Microsoft in 1996, and is compatible with a
wide range of devices, including older Windows systems, MacOS,
Linux, game consoles, and more

Question 5

Describe HFS+

Answer 5

▪ Hierarchical File System (HFS+)
● File system developed by Apple for use on Macintosh computers
and it was the primary file system for macOS until the introduction of APFS

Question 6

Describe EXT

Answer 6

▪ Extended File System (EXT)
● The latest version of EXT is the EXT3 and EXT4 file systems used by
Linux systems

Question 7

What is journalling?

Answer 7

● Journaling
* Feature that enhances the reliability of the file system by keeping a log (or journal) of changes not yet committed to the main file system

Question 8

In strictest to most relaxed, organize these file systems based on naming rules.

NTFS
HFS+
FAT32

Answer 8

● In FAT32, you will find the biggest number of reserved characters,
including \ / : ? “ < > | + , . ; = [ and ]

● In the Windows NTFS filesystem, file names cannot end with a
period or use the \ / : ? “ < > and | characters

● For an HFS+ filesystem, you cannot use the : or the / (forward
slash) character

Question 9

In biggest to smallest organize these file systems based on capacity.

FAT32
NTFS
HFS+
EXT4

Answer 9

● FAT32 - 4 GB Maximum File Size and 8 TB Maximum Volume Size
● EXT4 - 16 TB Maximum File Size and 1 EB Maximum Volume Size
● HFS+ - 8 EB Maximum File Size and Volume Size
● NTFS - 16 EB Maximum File Size and Volume Size

Question 10

Is FAT32 case sensitive?

Answer 10

No, file.txt and FILE.txt are treated as the same
files in FAT32

Question 11

How long of a name do most file systems support?

Answer 11

● Most modern file systems support longer file names of up to 255 characters, but FAT32 only supports a file length of 8 characters
plus a 3 character extension