Comparison of file systems
The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of file systems.
General information[edit]
Metadata[edit]
File system | Stores file owner | POSIX file permissions | Creation timestamps | Last access/ read timestamps | Last metadata change timestamps | Last archive timestamps | Access control lists | Security/ MAC labels | Extended attributes/ Alternate data streams/ forks | Metadata checksum/ ECC | File system |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Bcachefs | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Bcachefs |
BeeGFS | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | ? | Yes | Yes | BeeGFS |
CP/M file system | No | No | Yes[c] | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | CP/M file system |
DECtape[8] | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | DECtape |
Elektronika BK tape format | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Elektronika BK |
Level-D | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes (date only) | Yes | Yes | Yes (FILDAE) | No | No | No | Level-D |
RT-11[9] | No | No | Yes (date only) | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | RT-11 |
Version 6 Unix file system (V6FS)[10] | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | Version 6 Unix file system (V6FS) |
Version 7 Unix file system (V7FS)[11] | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | Version 7 Unix file system (V7FS) |
exFAT | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | exFAT |
FAT12/FAT16/FAT32 | No | No | Yes | Yes | No[d] | No | No | No | No[e] | No | FAT12/FAT16/FAT32 |
HPFS | Yes[f] | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | ? | Yes | No | HPFS |
NTFS | Yes | Yes[g] | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes[h] | Yes | No | NTFS |
ReFS | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | ? | Yes[i] | Yes | ReFS |
HFS | No | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | HFS |
HFS Plus | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | Yes | No | HFS Plus |
FFS | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | FFS |
UFS1 | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes[j] | Yes[j] | No[k] | No | UFS1 |
UFS2 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes[j] | Yes[j] | Yes | Partial | UFS2 |
HAMMER | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | HAMMER |
LFS | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | LFS |
ext | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | ext |
Xiafs | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | Xiafs |
ext2 | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes[l] | Yes[l] | Yes | No | ext2 |
ext3 | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes[l] | Yes[l] | Yes | No | ext3 |
ext4 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes[l] | Yes[l] | Yes | Partial[m] | ext4 |
NOVA | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes | NOVA |
Lustre | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Lustre |
F2FS | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes[l] | Yes[l] | Yes | No | F2FS |
GPFS | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | GPFS |
GFS | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes[l] | Yes[l] | Yes | No | GFS |
NILFS | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes | NILFS |
ReiserFS | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes[l] | Yes[l] | Yes | No | ReiserFS |
Reiser4 | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | Reiser4 |
OCFS | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | OCFS |
OCFS2 | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | OCFS2 |
XFS | Yes | Yes | Partial[n] | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes[l] | Yes | Yes | XFS |
JFS | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | JFS |
QFS | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | QFS |
BFS | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | BFS |
AdvFS | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | AdvFS |
NSS | Yes | Yes | Yes[o] | Yes[o] | Yes | Yes[o] | Yes | ? | Yes[p][q] | No | NSS |
NWFS | Yes | ? | Yes[o] | Yes[o] | Yes | Yes[o] | Yes | ? | Yes[p][q] | No | NWFS |
ODS-5 | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | ? | Yes | Yes | ? | Yes[r] | No | ODS-5 |
APFS | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | APFS |
VxFS | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | ? | Yes[l] | No | VxFS |
UDF | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | UDF |
Fossil | Yes | Yes[s] | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | Fossil |
ZFS | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes[t] | Yes[u] | Yes | ZFS |
Btrfs | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Btrfs |
Minix V1 | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Minix V1 |
Minix V2 | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | Minix V2 |
Minix V3 | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | Minix V3 |
VMFS2 | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | VMFS2 |
VMFS3 | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | VMFS3 |
ISO 9660:1988 | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | ISO 9660:1988 |
Rock Ridge | Yes | Yes | No | Yes[v] | Yes | No | No[w] | No[x] | No[x] | No | Rock Ridge |
Joliet ("CDFS") | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Joliet ("CDFS") |
ISO 9660:1999 | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | ISO 9660:1999 |
High Sierra | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | High Sierra |
SquashFS | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | SquashFS |
BlueStore/Cephfs | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | BlueStore/Cephfs |
File system | Stores file owner | POSIX file permissions | Creation timestamps | Last access/read timestamps | Last metadata change timestamps | Last archive timestamps | Access control lists | Security/ MAC labels | Extended attributes/ Alternate data streams/ forks | Metadata checksum/ ECC | File system |
Features[edit]
File capabilities[edit]
File system | Hard links | Symbolic links | Block journaling | Metadata-only journaling | Case-sensitive | Case-preserving | File Change Log | XIP | Resident files (inline data) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
DECtape | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | ? |
BeeGFS | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | ? |
Level-D | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | ? |
RT-11 | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | ? |
APFS | Yes | Yes | ? | ? | Optional | Yes | ? | ? | ? |
Version 6 Unix file system (V6FS) | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
Version 7 Unix file system (V7FS) | Yes | No[y] | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
exFAT | No | No | No | Partial (with TexFAT only) | No | Yes | No | No | No |
FAT12 | No | No | No | Partial (with TFAT12 only) | No | Partial (with VFAT LFNs only) | No | No | No |
FAT16 / FAT16B / FAT16X | No | No | No | Partial (with TFAT16 only) | No | Partial (with VFAT LFNs only) | No | No | No |
FAT32 / FAT32X | No | No | No? | Partial (with TFAT32 only) | No | Partial (with VFAT LFNs only) | No | No | No |
GFS | Yes | Yes[z] | Yes | Yes[aa] | Yes | Yes | No | No | ? |
HPFS | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | ? |
NTFS | Yes | Yes[ab] | No[ac] | Yes[ac] (2000) | Yes[ad] | Yes | Yes | ? | Yes (approximately 700 bytes) |
HFS Plus | Yes[16] | Yes | No | Yes[ae] | Optional[af] | Yes | Yes[ag] | No | ? |
FFS | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
UFS1 | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
UFS2 | Yes | Yes | No | Yes[ah] [21] [ai] | Yes | Yes | No | ? | No |
HAMMER | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | No | ? |
LFS | Yes | Yes | Yes[aj] | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | ? |
ext | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | ? |
Xiafs | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | ? |
ext2 | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes[ak] | ? |
ext3 | Yes | Yes | Yes (2001) [al] | Yes (2001) | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | ? |
ext4 | Yes | Yes | Yes[al] | Yes | Yes, optional [24] | Yes | No | Yes | Yes (approximately 160 bytes)[25] |
NOVA | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | ? |
F2FS | Yes | Yes | Yes[aj] | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | ? |
Lustre | Yes | Yes | Yes[al] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | ? |
NILFS | Yes | Yes | Yes[aj] | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | ? |
ReiserFS | Yes | Yes | Yes[am] | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | ? | ? |
Reiser4 | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | ? | ? |
OCFS | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | ? |
OCFS2 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | ? |
XFS | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes[an] | Yes | Yes | ? | ? |
JFS | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes (1990) | Yes[ao] | Yes | No | ? | ? |
QFS | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | ? |
BFS | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | No | ? |
NSS | Yes | Yes | ? | Yes | Yes[ap] | Yes[ap] | Yes[aq] | No | ? |
NWFS | Yes[ar] | Yes[ar] | No | No | Yes[ap] | Yes[ap] | Yes[aq] | No | ? |
ODS-2 | Yes | Yes[as] | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | ? |
ODS-5 | Yes | Yes[as] | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | ? | ? |
UDF | Yes | Yes | Yes[aj] | Yes[aj] | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes[27] |
VxFS | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | ? |
Fossil | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | ? |
ZFS | Yes | Yes | Yes[at] | No[at] | Yes | Yes | No | No | ? |
Btrfs | Yes | Yes | Yes[au] | No | Yes | Yes | ? | ? | ? |
Bcachefs | Yes | Yes | Yes[av] | No | Yes | Yes | ? | ? | ? |
Minix V1 | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | ? |
Minix V2 | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | ? |
Minix V3 | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | ? |
VMFS2 | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | ? |
VMFS3 | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | ? |
ReFS | Yes[aw] | Yes | ? | ? | Yes[ad] | Yes | ? | ? | ? |
ISO 9660 | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | ? |
Rock Ridge | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | ? |
Joliet ("CDFS") | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | ? |
SquashFS | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | ? |
BlueStore/Cephfs | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | ? |
File system | Hard links | Symbolic links | Block journaling | Metadata-only journaling | Case-sensitive | Case-preserving | File Change Log | XIP | Resident files |
Block capabilities[edit]
Note that in addition to the below table, block capabilities can be implemented below the file system layer in Linux (LVM, integritysetup, cryptsetup) or Windows (Volume Shadow Copy Service, SECURITY), etc.
File system | Internal snapshotting / branching | Encryption | Deduplication | Data checksum/ ECC | Persistent Cache | Multiple Devices | Compression | Self-healing[ax] |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
DECtape | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
BeeGFS | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | No |
Level-D | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
RT-11 | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
APFS | Yes | Yes | Yes [28] | No | No | No | Yes | No |
Version 6 Unix file system (V6FS) | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
Version 7 Unix file system (V7FS) | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
exFAT | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
FAT12 | No | No | No | No | No | No | Partial[ay] | No |
FAT16 / FAT16B / FAT16X | No | No | No | No | No | No | Partial[ay] | No |
FAT32 / FAT32X | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
GFS | No | No | ? | No | No | No | No | No |
HPFS | ? | No | ? | No | No | No | No | No |
NTFS | No | Yes | Yes[az][30] | No | No | No | Yes | No |
HFS Plus | No | No[ba] | No | No | No | No | No | No |
FFS | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
UFS1 | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
UFS2 | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
HAMMER | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No |
LFS | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
ext | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
Xiafs | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
ext2 | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
ext3 | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
ext4 | No | Yes, experimental [31] | No | No[32] | No | No | No | No |
NOVA | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | ? |
F2FS | No | Yes, experimental [33] | No | No | No | No | Yes | No |
Lustre | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No |
NILFS | Yes, continuous[aj] | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No |
ReiserFS | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
Reiser4 | ? | Yes[bb] | ? | No | No | No | Yes | No |
OCFS | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
OCFS2 | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
XFS | No | No | Yes[34] | No[32] | No | No | No | No |
JFS | ? | No | ? | No | No | No | only in JFS1 on AIX[35] | No |
QFS | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
BFS | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
NSS | Yes | Yes | ? | No | No | No | Yes | No |
NWFS | ? | No | ? | No | No | No | Yes | No |
ODS-2 | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
ODS-5 | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | |
UDF | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
VxFS | Yes[bc] | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
Fossil | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | No |
ZFS | Yes | Yes[bd] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes[be] | Yes |
Btrfs | Yes | No | Yes | Yes[bf] | No | Yes | Yes[bg] | Yes |
Bcachefs | Yes | Yes | No | Yes[bh] | No | Yes | Yes[bi] | No |
Minix V1 | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
Minix V2 | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
Minix V3 | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
VMFS2 | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
VMFS3 | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
ReFS | Yes[bj] | No | Yes | Yes[bk] | No | No | Yes[bl] | Yes |
ISO 9660 | No | No | No[bm] | No | No | No | No | No |
Rock Ridge | No | No | No[bm] | No | No | No | No | No |
Joliet ("CDFS") | No | No | No[bm] | No | No | No | No | No |
SquashFS | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | No |
BlueStore/Cephfs | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
File system | Internal snapshotting / branching | Encryption | Deduplication | Data checksum/ ECC | Persistent Cache | Multiple Devices | Compression | Self-healing[ax] |
Resize capabilities[edit]
"Online" and "offline" are synonymous with "mounted" and "not mounted".
File system | Host OS | Offline grow | Online grow | Offline shrink | Online shrink | Add and remove physical volumes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
FAT16 / FAT16B / FAT16X | misc. | Yes[bn] | No | Yes[bn] | No | No |
FAT32 / FAT32X | misc. | Yes[bn] | No | Yes[bn] | No | No |
exFAT | misc. | No | No | No | No | No |
NTFS | Windows | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
ReFS | Windows | ? | Yes | ? | No | No |
HFS | macOS | No | No | No | No | No |
HFS+ | macOS | No | Yes | No | Yes | No |
APFS | macOS | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
SquashFS | Linux | No | No | No | No | No |
NOVA | Linux | No | No | No | No | No |
JFS[44] | Linux | Yes | No | No | No | No |
XFS[45] | Linux | No | Yes | No[46] | No[46] | No |
Lustre[47] | Linux | ? | Yes | No | No | Yes |
F2FS[48] | Linux | Yes | No | No | No | No |
NTFS[49] | Linux | Yes | No | Yes | No | No |
ext2[50] | Linux | Yes | No | Yes | No | No |
ext3[50] | Linux | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
ReiserFS[51] | Linux | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
Reiser4[52] | Linux | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
ext4[50] | Linux | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
Btrfs[53] | Linux | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Bcachefs[41] | Linux | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes |
NILFS[54] | Linux | No | Yes | No | Yes | No |
ZFS | misc. | No | Yes | No | Partial[55] | Yes |
JFS2 | AIX | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
UFS2[56] | FreeBSD | Yes | Yes (FreeBSD 10.0-RELEASE or later) | No | No | No |
HAMMER | DragonflyBSD | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
BlueStore/Cephfs | Linux | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
Allocation and layout policies[edit]
File system | Sparse files | Block suballocation | Tail packing | Extents | Variable file block size[bo] | Allocate-on-flush | Copy on write | Trim support |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
DECtape | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
BeeGFS | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? |
Level-D | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | ? |
APFS | Yes | ? | ? | Yes | ? | Yes | Yes | Yes[57][58] |
Version 6 Unix file system (V6FS) | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | ? | No |
Version 7 Unix file system (V7FS) | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | ? | No |
exFAT | No | No | No | Partial (only if the file fits into one contiguous block range) | No | No | No | Yes (Linux) |
FAT12 | Partial (only inside of compressed volumes)[59] | Partial (only inside of Stacker 3/4 and DriveSpace 3 compressed volumes[29]) | No | Partial (only inside of compressed volumes)[60] | No | No | No | Yes (Linux) |
FAT16 / FAT16B / FAT16X | Partial (only inside of compressed volumes)[59] | Partial (only inside of Stacker 3/4 and DriveSpace 3 compressed volumes[29]) | No | Partial (only inside of compressed volumes)[60] | No | No | No | Yes (Linux) |
FAT32 / FAT32X | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes (Linux) |
GFS | Yes | No | Partial[bp] | No | No | No | ? | Yes |
HPFS | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | ? | Yes (Linux) |
NTFS | Yes | Partial | No | Yes | No | No | ? | Yes (NT 6.1+; Linux) |
HFS Plus | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | ? | Yes (macOS) |
FFS | Yes | 8:1[bq] | No | No | No | No | ? | No |
UFS1 | Yes | 8:1[bq] | No | No | No | No | ? | No |
UFS2 | Yes | 8:1[bq] | No | No | Yes | No | ? | Yes[61][62] |
LFS | Yes | 8:1[bq] | No | No | No | No | Yes | ? |
ext | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
Xiafs | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | ? | ? |
ext2 | Yes | No[br] | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |
ext3 | Yes | No[br] | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |
ext4 | Yes | No[br] | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes |
NOVA | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | ? |
F2FS | Yes | No | No | Partial[bs] | No | Yes | Yes | Yes[63] |
Lustre | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | ? | ? |
NILFS | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes (Linux NILFS2) |
ReiserFS | Yes | Yes[bt] | Yes | No | No | No | ? | ? |
Reiser4 | Yes | Yes[bt] | Yes | Yes[bu] | No | Yes | ? | Testing[64] |
OCFS | ? | No | No | Yes | No | No | ? | ? |
OCFS2 | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | ? | Yes (Linux) |
XFS | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes, on request[65] | Yes (Linux) |
JFS | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | ? | Yes (Linux) |
QFS | ? | Yes | No | No | No | No | ? | ? |
BFS | ? | No | No | Yes | No | No | ? | Yes (Haiku) |
NSS | ? | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | ? | ? |
NWFS | ? | Yes[bv] | No | No | No | No | ? | ? |
ODS-5 | ? | No | No | Yes | No | No | ? | ? |
VxFS | Yes | ? | No | Yes | No | No | ? | ? |
UDF | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | ?[bw] | Yes, for write once read many media | No |
Fossil | ? | No | No | No | No | No | ? | ? |
ZFS | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Btrfs | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Bcachefs | ? | ? | ? | Yes | ? | Yes | Yes | ? |
VMFS2 | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | ? | ? |
VMFS3 | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | ? | ? |
ReFS | Yes | ? | ? | ? | No | ? | Yes | Yes (NT 6.1+) |
ISO 9660 | No | No | No | Yes[bx] | No | No | No | No |
Rock Ridge | No | No | No | Yes[bx] | No | No | No | No |
Joliet ("CDFS") | No | No | No | Yes[bx] | No | No | No | No |
SquashFS | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
BlueStore/Cephfs | Yes | ? | ? | ? | ? | No | Yes | Yes |
File system | Sparse files | Block suballocation | Tail packing | Extents | Variable file block size[bo] | Allocate-on-flush | Copy on write | Trim support |
OS support[edit]
File system | DOS | Linux | macOS | Windows 9x (historic) | Windows (current) | Classic Mac OS | FreeBSD | OS/2 | BeOS | Minix | Solaris | z/OS | Android |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
APFS | No | Partial (read-only with apfs-fuse[67] or linux-apfs[68]) | Yes (Since macOS Sierra) | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
BeeGFS | No | Yes | ? | No | No | No | No | No | ? | ? | ? | No | No |
DECtape | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
Level-D | No | ? | ? | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | ? | ? | No |
RT-11 | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
Version 6 Unix file system (V6FS) | No | ? | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
Version 7 Unix file system (V7FS) | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | ? | ? | ? | No | No |
exFAT | No | Yes (since 5.4,[69] available as a kernel module or FUSE driver for earlier versions) | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes (available as a FUSE driver) | No | No | No | Yes (available as a FUSE driver) | No | With kernel 5.10 |
FAT12 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial (via dosdir, dosread, doswrite) | Yes | ? | Yes |
FAT16 / FAT16B / FAT16X | Yes (FAT16 from DOS 3.0, FAT16B from DOS 3.31, FAT16X from DOS 7.0) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial (via dosdir, dosread, doswrite, not FAT16X) | Yes | ? | Yes |
FAT32 / FAT32X | Yes (from DOS 7.10) | Yes | Yes | Yes (from Windows 95 OSR2) | Yes | ? | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | ? | Yes |
GFS | No | Yes | ? | No | No | No | No | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | No |
HPFS | Partial (with third-party drivers) | Yes | ? | No | No | ? | Yes | Yes (from OS/2 1.2) | ? | No | ? | ? | No |
NTFS | Partial (with third-party drivers) | Yes Native since Linux Kernel 5.15 NTFS3. Older kernels may use backported NTFS3 driver or ntfs-3g[70] | Read only, write support needs Paragon NTFS or ntfs-3g | Needs 3rd-party drivers like Paragon NTFS for Win98, DiskInternals NTFS Reader | Yes | No | Yes with ntfs-3g | ? | Yes with ntfs-3g | No | Yes with ntfs-3g | ? | With third party tools |
Apple HFS | No | Yes | No write support since Mac OS X 10.6 and no support at all since macOS 10.15 | No | Needs Paragon HFS+ [71] | Yes | No | ? | Yes | No | ? | No | No |
Apple HFS Plus | No | Partial - writing support only to unjournalled FS | Yes | No | Needs Paragon HFS+ [71] | Yes from Mac OS 8.1 | No | ? | with addon | No | ? | No | No |
FFS | No | ? | Yes | No | ? | ? | Yes | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | No |
UFS1 | No | Partial - read only | Yes | No | Partial (with ufs2tools, read only) | ? | Yes | No | ? | ? | Yes | ? | No |
UFS2 | No | Yes | Yes | No | Partial (with ufs2tools, read only) | ? | Yes | No | ? | ? | ? | ? | No |
LFS | No | ? | ? | No | No | ? | No | No | ? | ? | ? | ? | No |
ext | No | Yes - until 2.1.20 | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
Xiafs | No | Yes - until 2.1.20 | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
ext2 | No | Yes | Needs Paragon ExtFS [74] or ext2fsx | Partial (read-only, with explore2fs)[75] | Needs Paragon ExtFS [76] or partial with Ext2 IFS[77] or ext2fsd[78] | No | Yes | No | Yes | ? | ? | ? | No |
ext3 | No | Yes | Needs Paragon ExtFS [74] or partial with ext2fsx (journal not updated on writing) | Partial (read-only, with explore2fs)[75] | Needs Paragon ExtFS [76] or partial with Ext2 IFS[77] or ext2fsd[78] | Partial (read only)[citation needed] | Yes[79] | No | with addon | ? | Yes | ? | Yes |
ext4 | No | Yes | Needs Paragon ExtFS [74] | No | Yes, with the optional WSL2; physical and VHDX virtual disks.[80][81] | ? | Yes since FreeBSD 12.0[79] | No | with addon | ? | ? | ? | Yes |
NOVA | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
Lustre | No | Yes[82] | ? | No | No | ? | No | ? | ? | ? | Yes | ? | No |
NILFS | No | Yes as an external kernel module | ? | No | ? | ? | No | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | No |
F2FS | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |
ReiserFS | No | Yes | ? | No | No | ? | Partial - Read Only from 6.0 to 10.x[83] and dropped in 11.0[84][85] | ? | with addon | ? | ? | ? | No |
Reiser4 | No | Yes with a kernel patch | ? | No | No | ? | No | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | No |
SpadFS | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | ? | No | No | No | No | No | No |
OCFS | No | Yes | ? | No | No | ? | No | No | ? | ? | ? | ? | No |
OCFS2 | No | Yes | ? | No | No | ? | No | No | ? | ? | ? | ? | No |
XFS | No | Yes | ? | No | No | ? | Partial | ? | with addon (read only) | ? | ? | ? | No |
JFS | No | Yes | ? | No | No | ? | No | Yes | ? | ? | ? | ? | No |
QFS | No | Partial - client only[86] | ? | No | No | ? | No | No | ? | ? | Yes | ? | No |
Be File System | No | Partial - read-only | ? | No | No | ? | No | No | Yes | ? | ? | ? | No |
NSS | No | Yes via EVMS[by] | ? | No | No | ? | No | No | ? | ? | ? | ? | No |
NWFS | Partial (with Novell drivers) | ? | ? | No | No | ? | Yes | No | ? | ? | ? | ? | No |
ODS-2 | No | ? | ? | No | No | ? | No | No | ? | ? | ? | ? | No |
ODS-5 | No | ? | ? | No | No | ? | No | No | ? | ? | ? | ? | No |
UDF | No | Yes | Yes | ? | Yes | ? | Yes | ? | ? | ? | Yes | ? | No |
VxFS | No | Yes | ? | No | No | ? | No | No | ? | ? | Yes | ? | No |
Fossil | No | Yes[bz] | Yes[bz] | No | No | No | Yes[bz] | No | No | No | Yes[bz] | ? | No |
ZFS | No | Yes with FUSE[87] or as an external kernel module[88] | Yes with Read/Write Developer Preview[89] | No | Yes[90] | No | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | No | No |
Btrfs | No | Yes | ? | No | Yes with WinBtrfs[91] | ? | No | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | No |
Bcachefs | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
VMFS2 | No | ? | ? | No | No | ? | No | No | ? | ? | ? | ? | No |
VMFS3 | No | ? | ? | No | No | ? | No | No | ? | ? | ? | ? | No |
IBM HFS | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No |
IBM zFS | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No |
ReFS | No | Needs Paragon ReFS for Linux | ? | No | Yes | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | No |
ISO 9660 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
Rock Ridge | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | ? | No |
Joliet ("CDFS") | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | Yes | ? | No |
SquashFS | No | Yes | Partial (There are ports of unsquashfs and mksquashfs.) | No | Partial (There are ports of unsquashfs and mksquashfs.) | No | Partial (There are ports of unsquashfs and mksquashfs and fusefs-port.[92][93]) | No | No | No | No | No | No |
BlueStore/Cephfs | No | Yes | No[ca] | No | No[cb] | No | No[ca] | No | No | No | No | No | No |
File system | DOS | Linux | macOS | Windows 9x (historic) | Windows (current) | Classic Mac OS | FreeBSD | OS/2 | BeOS | Minix | Solaris | z/OS | Android |
Limits[edit]
While storage devices usually have their size expressed in powers of 10 (for instance a 1 TB Solid State Drive will contain at least 1,000,000,000,000 (1012, 10004) bytes), filesystem limits are invariably powers of 2, so usually expressed with IEC prefixes. For instance, a 1 TiB limit means 240, 10244 bytes. Approximations (rounding down) using power of 10 are also given below to clarify.
File system | Maximum filename length | Allowable characters in directory entries[cc] | Maximum pathname length | Maximum file size | Maximum volume size[cd] | Max number of files |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
AdvFS | 255 characters | Any byte except NUL[ce] | No limit defined[cf] | 16 TiB (17.59 TB) | 16 TiB (17.59 TB) | ? |
APFS | 255 UTF-8 characters | Unicode 9.0 encoded in UTF-8[94] | ? | 8 EiB (9.223 EB) | ? | 263 [95] |
Bcachefs | 255 bytes | Any byte except '/' and NUL | No limit defined | 16 EiB (18.44 EB) | 16 EiB (18.44 EB) | 264 |
BeeGFS | 255 bytes | Any byte except NUL[ce] | No limit defined[cf] | 16 EiB (18.44 EB) | 16 EiB (18.44 EB) | ? |
BFS | 255 bytes | Any byte except NUL[ce] | No limit defined[cf] | 12,288 bytes to 260 GiB (279.1 GB)[cg] | 256 PiB (288.2 PB) to 2 EiB (2.305 EB) | Unlimited |
BlueStore/Cephfs | 255 characters | any byte, except null, "/" | No limit defined | Max. 264 bytes, 1 TiB (1.099 TB) by default [96] | Not limited | Not limited, default is 100,000 files per directory [97] |
Btrfs | 255 bytes | Any byte except '/' and NUL | No limit defined | 16 EiB (18.44 EB) | 16 EiB (18.44 EB) | 264 |
CBM DOS | 16 bytes | Any byte except NUL | 0 (no directory hierarchy) | 16 MiB (16.77 MB) | 16 MiB (16.77 MB) | ? |
CP/M file system | 8.3 | ASCII except for < > . , ; : = ? * [ ] | No directory hierarchy (but accessibility of files depends on user areas via USER command since CP/M 2.2) | 32 MiB (33.55 MB) | 512 MiB (536.8 MB) | ? |
DECtape | 6.3 | A–Z, 0–9 | DTxN:FILNAM.EXT = 15 | 369,280 bytes (577 * 640) | 369,920 bytes (578 * 640) | ? |
Disk Operating System (GEC DOS) | ? | ? | ? | ? at least 131,072 bytes | ? | ? |
Elektronika BK tape format | 16 bytes | ? | No directory hierarchy | 64 KiB (65.53 KB) | Not limited. Approx. 800 KiB (819.2 KB) (one side) for 90 min cassette | ? |
exFAT | 255 UTF-16 characters | Unicode except for control codes 0x0000 - 0x001F or " * / : < > ? \ | [98] | 32,760 characters with each path component no more than 255 characters[99] | 16 EiB (18.44 EB)[99] | 64 ZiB (75.55 ZB) (276 bytes) | ? |
ext | 255 bytes | Any byte except NUL[ce] | No limit defined[cf] | 2 GiB (2.147 GB) | 2 GiB (2.147 GB) | ? |
ext2 | 255 bytes | Any byte except NUL, /[ce] | No limit defined[cf] | 16 GiB (17.17 GB) to 2 TiB (2.199 TB)[cd] | 2 TiB (2.199 TB) to 32 TiB (35.18 TB) | ? |
ext3 | 255 bytes | Any byte except NUL, /[ce] | No limit defined[cf] | 16 GiB (17.17 GB) to 2 TiB (2.199 TB)[cd] | 2 TiB (2.199 TB) to 32 TiB (35.18 TB) | ? |
ext4 | 255 bytes[100] | Any byte except NUL, /[ce] | No limit defined[cf] | 16 GiB (17.17 GB) to 16 TiB (17.59 TB)[cd][101] | 1 EiB (1.152 EB) | 232 (static inode limit specified at creation) |
F2FS | 255 bytes | Any byte except NUL, /[ce] | No limit defined[cf] | 4,228,213,756 KiB (4.329 TB) | 16 TiB (17.59 TB) | ? |
FAT (8-bit) | 6.3 (binary files) / 9 characters (ASCII files) | ASCII (0x00 and 0xFF not allowed in first character) | No directory hierarchy | ? | ? | ? |
FAT12/FAT16 | 8.3 (255 UCS-2 characters with LFN)[ch] | SFN: OEM A-Z, 0-9, ! # $ % & ' ( ) - @ ^ _ ` { } ~, 0x80-0xFF, 0x20. LFN: Unicode except NUL, " * / : < > ? \ | [cc][ce] | No limit defined[cf] | 32 MiB (33.55 MB) (4 GiB (4.294 GB))[ci] | 1 MiB (1.048 MB) to 32 MiB (33.55 MB) | ? |
FAT16B/FAT16X | 8.3 (255 UCS-2 characters with LFN)[ch] | SFN: OEM A-Z, 0-9, ! # $ % & ' ( ) - @ ^ _ ` { } ~, 0x80-0xFF, 0x20. LFN: Unicode except NUL, " * / : < > ? \ | [cc][ch][ce] | No limit defined[cf] | 2 (4) GiB[ci] (2.147 GB) | 16 MiB (16.77 MB) to 2 (4) GiB (2.147 GB) | ? |
FAT32/FAT32X | 8.3 (255 UCS-2 characters with LFN)[ch] | SFN: OEM A-Z, 0-9, ! # $ % & ' ( ) - @ ^ _ ` { } ~, 0x80-0xFF, 0x20. LFN: Unicode except NUL, " * / : < > ? \ | [cc][ch][ce] | 32,760 characters with each path component no more than 255 characters[99] | 4 GiB (4.294 GB)[99] | 512 MiB (536.8 MB) to 16 TiB (17.59 TB)[cj] | ? |
FATX | 42 bytes[ch] | ASCII. | No limit defined[cf] | 2 GiB (2.147 GB) | 16 MiB (16.77 MB) to 2 GiB (2.147 GB) | ? |
FFS | 255 bytes | Any byte except NUL[ce] | No limit defined[cf] | 4 GiB (4.294 GB) | 256 TiB (281.4 TB) | ? |
Fossil | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
GEC DOS filing system extended | 8 bytes | A–Z, 0–9. Period was directory separator | ? No limit defined (workaround for OS limit) | ? at least 131,072 bytes | ? | ? |
GEMDOS | 8.3 | A-Z, a-z, 0-9 ! @ # $ % ^ & ( ) + - = ~ ` ; ' " , < > | [ ] ( ) _[103] | ? | ? | ? | ? |
GFS2 | 255 bytes | Any byte except NUL[ce] | No limit defined[cf] | 100 TiB (109.95 TB) to 8 EiB (9.223 EB)[ck] | 100 TiB (109.95 TB) to 8 EiB (9.223 EB)[cl] | ? |
GFS | 255 bytes | Any byte except NUL[ce] | No limit defined[cf] | 2 TiB (2.199 TB) to 8 EiB (9.223 EB)[cm] | 2 TiB (2.199 TB) to 8 EiB (9.223 EB)[cm] | ? |
GPFS | 255 UTF-8 codepoints | Any byte except NUL[ce] | No limit defined[cf] | 9 EiB (10.37 EB) | 524,288 YiB (299 bytes) | ? |
HAMMER | 1023 bytes[106] | Any byte except NUL[ce] | ? | ? | 1 EiB (1.152 EB)[107] | ? |
HFS | 31 bytes | Any byte except : | Unlimited | 2 GiB (2.147 GB) | 2 TiB (2.199 TB) | ? |
HFS Plus | 255 UTF-16 characters[cn] | Any valid Unicode[ce][co] | Unlimited | slightly less than 8 EiB (9.223 EB) | slightly less than 8 EiB (9.223 EB)[108][109] | ? |
High Sierra Format | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
HPFS | 255 bytes | Any byte except NUL[cp] | No limit defined[cf] | 2 GiB (2.147 GB) | 2 TiB (2.199 TB)[cq] | ? |
IBM SFS | 8.8 | ? | ? | Non-hierarchical[110] | ? | ? |
ISO 9660:1988 | Level 1: 8.3, Level 2 & 3: ~ 180 | Depends on Level[cr] | ~ 180 bytes? | 4 GiB (4.294 GB) (Level 1 & 2) to 8 TiB (8.796 TB) (Level 3)[cs] | 8 TiB (8.796 TB)[ct] | ? |
ISO 9660:1999 | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
JFS | 255 bytes | Any Unicode except NUL | No limit defined[cf] | 4 PiB (4.503 PB) | 32 PiB (36.02 PB) | ? |
JFS1 | 255 bytes | Any byte except NUL[ce] | No limit defined[cf] | 8 EiB (9.223 EB) | 512 TiB (562.9 TB) to 4 PiB (4.503 PB) | ? |
Joliet ("CDFS") | 64 characters | All UCS-2 code except *, /, \, :, ;, and ?[111] | ? | same as ISO 9660:1988 | same as ISO 9660:1988 | ? |
Level-D | 6.3 | A–Z, 0–9 | DEVICE:FILNAM.EXT[PROJCT,PROGRM] = 7 + 10 + 15 = 32; + 5*7 for SFDs = 67 | 34,359,738,368 words (235); 206,158,430,208 SIXBIT bytes | Approx 12 GiB (12.88 GB) (64 * 178 MiB (186.6 MB)) | ? |
Lustre | 255 bytes | Any byte except NUL[ce] | No limit defined[cf] | 16 EiB (18.44 EB) on ZFS | 16 EiB (18.44 EB) | ? |
MFS | 255 bytes | Any byte except : | No path (flat filesystem) | 256 MiB (268.4 MB) | 256 MiB (268.4 MB) | ? |
MicroDOS file system | 14 bytes | ? | ? | 16 MiB (16.77 MB) | 32 MiB (33.55 MB) | ? |
Minix V1 FS | 14 or 30 bytes, set at filesystem creation time | Any byte except NUL[ce] | No limit defined[cf] | 256.5 MiB (268.9 MB) [cu] | 64 MiB (67.10 MB) | ? |
Minix V2 FS | 14 or 30 bytes, set at filesystem creation time | Any byte except NUL[ce] | No limit defined[cf] | 2 GiB (2.147 GB) [cu] | 1 GiB (1.073 GB) | ? |
Minix V3 FS | 60 bytes | Any byte except NUL[ce] | No limit defined[cf] | 2 GiB (2.147 GB) | 4 GiB (4.294 GB) | ? |
NILFS | 255 bytes | Any byte except NUL[ce] | No limit defined[cf] | 8 EiB (9.223 EB) | 8 EiB (9.223 EB) | ? |
NOVA | 255 bytes | Any byte except NUL, /[ce] | No limit defined[cf] | 16 EiB (18.44 EB) | 16 EiB (18.44 EB) | ? |
NSS | 256 characters | Depends on namespace used[cv] | Only limited by client | 8 TiB (8.796 TB) | 8 TiB (8.796 TB) | ? |
NTFS | 255 characters | In Win32 namespace: any UTF-16 code unit (case-insensitive) except /\:*"?<>| as well as NUL In POSIX namespace: any UTF-16 code unit (case-sensitive) except | 32,767 characters with each path component (directory or filename) up to 255 characters long[cf] | 16 TiB (17.59 TB) to 8 PiB (9.007 PB)[cw][113] | 16 TiB (17.59 TB) to 8 PiB (9.007 PB)[cw][113] | 232 |
NWFS | 80 bytes[cx] | Depends on namespace used[cv] | No limit defined[cf] | 4 GiB (4.294 GB) | 1 TiB (1.099 TB) | ? |
OCFS | 255 bytes | Any byte except NUL[ce] | No limit defined[cf] | 8 TiB (8.796 TB) | 8 TiB (8.796 TB) | ? |
OCFS2 | 255 bytes | Any byte except NUL[ce] | No limit defined[cf] | 4 PiB (4.503 PB) | 4 PiB (4.503 PB) | ? |
ODS-5 | 236 bytes[cy] | ? | 4,096 bytes[cz] | 1 TiB (1.099 TB) | 1 TiB (1.099 TB) | ? |
QFS | 255 bytes | Any byte except NUL[ce] | No limit defined[cf] | 16 EiB (18.44 EB)[da] | 4 PiB (4.503 PB)[da] | ? |
ReFS | 255 UTF-16 characters[114] | In Win32 namespace: any UTF-16 code unit (case-insensitive) except /\:*"?<>| as well as NUL In POSIX namespace: any UTF-16 code unit (case-sensitive) except | 32,767 characters with each path component (directory or filename) up to 255 characters long[114] | 16 EiB (18.44 EB)[114][116] | 1 YiB (1.208 YB)[114] | ? |
ReiserFS | 4,032 bytes/255 characters | Any byte except NUL or '/' [ce] | No limit defined[cf] | 8 TiB (8.796 TB)[db] (v3.6), 4 GiB (4.294 GB) (v3.5) | 16 TiB (17.59 TB) | ? |
Reiser4 | 3,976 bytes | Any byte except / and NUL | No limit defined[cf] | 8 TiB (8.796 TB) on x86 | ? | ? |
Rock Ridge | 255 bytes | Any byte except NUL or /[ce] | No limit defined[cf] | same as ISO 9660:1988 | same as ISO 9660:1988 | ? |
RT-11 | 6.3 | A–Z, 0–9, $ | 0 (no directory hierarchy) | 33,554,432 bytes (65536 * 512) | 33,554,432 bytes | ? |
SquashFS | 256 bytes | ? | No limit defined | 16 EiB (18.44 EB) | 16 EiB (18.44 EB) | ? |
UDF | 255 bytes | Any Unicode except NUL | 1,023 bytes[dc] | 16 EiB (18.44 EB) | 512 MiB (536.8 MB) to 16 TiB (17.59 TB) | ? |
UFS1 | 255 bytes | Any byte except NUL[ce] | No limit defined[cf] | 16 GiB (17.17 GB) to 256 TiB (281.4 TB) | 16 EiB (18.44 EB) | Subdirectory per directory is 32,767[118] |
UFS2 | 255 bytes | Any byte except NUL[ce] | No limit defined[cf] | 512 GiB (549.7 GB) to 32 PiB (36.02 PB) | 512 ZiB (604.4 ZB)[119] (279 bytes) | Subdirectory per directory is 32,767[118] |
UniFS | No limit defined (depends on client) | ? | No limit defined (depends on client) | Available cache space at time of write (depends on platform) | No limit defined | No limit defined |
Version 6 Unix file system (V6FS) | 14 bytes | Any byte except NUL and / [ce] | No limit defined[cf] | 16 MiB (16.77 MB)[dd] | 32 MiB (33.55 MB) | ? |
Version 7 Unix file system (V7FS) | 14 bytes | Any byte except NUL or / [ce] | No limit defined[cf] | 1 GiB (1.073 GB)[de] | 2 TiB (2.199 TB) | ? |
VMFS2 | 128 | Any byte except NUL or / [ce] | 2,048 | 4 TiB (4.398 TB)[df] | 64 TiB (70.36 TB) | ? |
VMFS3 | 128 | Any byte except NUL or / [ce] | 2,048 | 2 TiB (2.199 TB)[df] | 64 TiB (70.36 TB) | ? |
VxFS | 255 bytes | Any byte except NUL[ce] | No limit defined[cf] | 16 EiB (18.44 EB) | ? | ? |
XFS | 255 bytes[dg] | Any byte except NUL[ce] | No limit defined[cf] | 8 EiB (9.223 EB)[dh] | 8 EiB (9.223 EB)[dh] | ? |
Xiafs | 248 bytes | Any byte except NUL[ce] | No limit defined[cf] | 64 MiB (67.10 MB) | 2 GiB (2.147 GB) | ? |
ZFS | 255 bytes | Any Unicode except NUL | No limit defined[cf] | 16 EiB (18.44 EB) | 281,474,976,710,656 YiB (2128 bytes) | 2128 |
File system | Maximum filename length | Allowable characters in directory entries[cc] | Maximum pathname length | Maximum file size | Maximum volume size[cd] | Max number of files |
See also[edit]
- List of file systems
- Comparison of file archivers
- List of archive formats
- Comparison of archive formats
Notes[edit]
- ^ IBM introduced JFS with the initial release of AIX Version 3.1 in 1990. This file system now called JFS1. The new JFS, on which the Linux port was based, was first shipped in OS/2 Warp Server for e-Business in 1999. The same sourcebase was also used for release JFS2 on AIX 5L.
- ^ Microsoft first introduced FAT32 in MS-DOS 7.1 / Windows 95 OSR2 (OEM Service Release 2) and then later in Windows 98. NT-based Windows did not have any support for FAT32 up to Windows NT4; Windows 2000 was the first NT-based Windows OS that received the ability to work with it.
- ^ Implemented in later versions as an extension
- ^ Some FAT implementations, such as in Linux, show file modification timestamp (mtime) in the metadata change timestamp (ctime) field. This timestamp is however, not updated on file metadata change.
- ^ Particular Installable File System drivers and operating systems may not support extended attributes on FAT12 and FAT16. The OS/2 and Windows NT filesystem drivers for FAT12 and FAT16 support extended attributes (using a "EA DATA. SF" pseudo-file to reserve the clusters allocated to them). Other filesystem drivers for other operating systems do not.
- ^ The f-node contains a field for a user identifier. This is not used except by OS/2 Warp Server, however.
- ^ NTFS access control lists can express any access policy possible using simple POSIX file permissions (and far more), but use of a POSIX-like interface is not supported without an add-on such as Services for UNIX or Cygwin.
- ^ As of Vista, NTFS has support for Mandatory Labels, which are used to enforce Mandatory Integrity Control.[12]
- ^ Initially, ReFS lacked support for ADS, but Server 2012 R2 and up add support for ADS on ReFS
- ^ a b c d Access-control lists and MAC labels are layered on top of extended attributes.
- ^ Some operating systems implemented extended attributes as a layer over UFS1 with a parallel backing file (e.g., FreeBSD 4.x).
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Some Installable File System drivers and operating systems may not support extended attributes, access control lists or security labels on these filesystems. Linux kernels prior to 2.6.x may either be missing support for these altogether or require a patch.
- ^ Metadata is mostly checksummed,[13] however Direct/indirect/triple-indirect block maps are not protected by checksums[14]
- ^ Creation time stored since June 2015, xfsprogs version 3.2.3
- ^ a b c d e f The local time, time zone/UTC offset, and date are derived from the time settings of the reference/single timesync source in the NDS tree.
- ^ a b Novell calls this feature "multiple data streams". Published specifications say that NWFS allows for 16 attributes and 10 data streams, and NSS allows for unlimited quantities of both.
- ^ a b Some file and directory metadata is stored on the NetWare server irrespective of whether Directory Services is installed or not, like date/time of creation, file size, purge status, etc; and some file and directory metadata is stored in NDS/eDirectory, like file/object permissions, ownership, etc.
- ^ Record Management Services (RMS) attributes include record type and size, among many others.
- ^ File permission in 9P are a variation of the traditional Unix permissions with some minor changes, e.g. the suid bit is replaced by a new 'exclusive access' bit.
- ^ Supported on FreeBSD and Linux implementations, support may not be available on all operating systems.
- ^ Solaris "extended attributes" are really full-blown alternate data streams, in both the Solaris UFS and ZFS.
- ^ Access times are preserved from the original file system at creation time, but Rock Ridge file systems themselves are read-only.
- ^ libburnia can back up and restore ACLs with file system creation and extraction programs, but no kernel support exists.
- ^ a b libburnia can back up and restore extended attributes and MAC labels with file system creation and extraction programs, but no kernel support exists.
- ^ System V Release 4, and some other Unix systems, retrofitted symbolic links to their versions of the Version 7 Unix file system, although the original version didn't support them.
- ^ Context based symlinks were supported in GFS, GFS2 only supports standard symlinks since the bind mount feature of the Linux VFS has made context based symlinks obsolete
- ^ Optional journaling of data
- ^ As of Windows Vista, NTFS fully supports symbolic links.[15] NTFS 3.0 (Windows 2000) and higher can create junctions, which allow entire directories (but not individual files) to be mapped to elsewhere in the directory tree of the same partition (file system). These are implemented through reparse points, which allow the normal process of filename resolution to be extended in a flexible manner.
- ^ a b NTFS stores everything, even the file data, as meta-data, so its log is closer to block journaling.
- ^ a b While NTFS itself supports case sensitivity, the Win32 environment subsystem cannot create files whose names differ only by case for compatibility reasons. When a file is opened for writing, if there is any existing file whose name is a case-insensitive match for the new file, the existing file is truncated and opened for writing instead of a new file with a different name being created. Other subsystems like e. g. Services for Unix, that operate directly above the kernel and not on top of Win32 can have case-sensitivity.
- ^ Metadata-only journaling was introduced in the Mac OS X 10.2.2 HFS Plus driver; journaling is enabled by default on Mac OS X 10.3 and later.
- ^ Although often believed to be case sensitive, HFS Plus normally is not. The typical default installation is case-preserving only. From Mac OS X 10.3 on the command newfs_hfs -s will create a case-sensitive new file system.[17] HFS Plus version 5 optionally supports case-sensitivity. However, since case-sensitivity is fundamentally different from case-insensitivity, a new signature was required so existing HFS Plus utilities would not see case-sensitivity as a file system error that needed to be corrected. Since the new signature is 'HX', it is often believed this is a new filesystem instead of a simply an upgraded version of HFS Plus.[18][19]
- ^ Mac OS X Tiger (10.4) and late versions of Panther (10.3) provide file change logging (it's a feature of the file system software, not of the volume format, actually).[20]
- ^ "Soft dependencies" (softdep) in NetBSD, called "soft updates" in FreeBSD provide meta-data consistency at all times without double writes (journaling)
- ^ Journaled Soft Updates (SU+J) are the default as of FreeBSD 9.x-RELEASE [22][23]
- ^ a b c d e f UDF, LFS, and NILFS are log-structured file systems and behave as if the entire file system were a journal.
- ^ Linux kernel versions 2.6.12 and newer.
- ^ a b c Off by default.
- ^ Full block journaling for ReiserFS was added to Linux 2.6.8.
- ^ Optionally no on IRIX and Linux.
- ^ Particular Installable File System drivers and operating systems may not support case sensitivity for JFS. OS/2 does not, and Linux has a mount option for disabling case sensitivity.
- ^ a b c d Case-sensitivity/Preservation depends on client. Windows, DOS, and OS/2 clients don't see/keep case differences, whereas clients accessing via NFS or AFP may.
- ^ a b The file change logs, last entry change timestamps, and other filesystem metadata, are all part of the extensive suite of auditing capabilities built into NDS/eDirectory called NSure Audit.[26]
- ^ a b Available only in the "NFS" namespace.
- ^ a b These are referred to as "aliases".
- ^ a b ZFS is a transactional filesystem using copy-on-write semantics, guaranteeing an always-consistent on-disk state without the use of a traditional journal. However, it does also implement an intent log to provide better performance when synchronous writes are requested.
- ^ Btrfs is a transactional filesystem using copy-on-write semantics, guaranteeing an always-consistent on-disk state without the use of a traditional journal. It keeps track of last five transactions and uses checksums to find problematic drives, making write intent logs unnecessary.
- ^ Bcachefs is a transactional filesystem using copy-on-write semantics, guaranteeing an always-consistent on-disk state without the use of a traditional journal. Journal commits are fairly expensive operations as they require issuing FLUSH and FUA operations to the underlying devices. By default, a journal flush is issued one second after a filesystem update has been done, which primarily records btree updates ordered by when they occurred. This option may be useful on a personal workstation or laptop, and perhaps less appropriate on a server.
- ^ Since Windows 10 Enterprise Insider Preview build 19536
- ^ a b A file system is self-healing if its capable to proactively autonomously detect and correct all but grave errors, faults and corruptions online both in internal metadata AND data. See US7694191B1 as example. This usually requires full checksumming as well as internal redundancy as well as corresponding logic.
- ^ a b only inside of Stacker 3/4 and DriveSpace 3 compressed volumes[29]
- ^ Supported only on Windows Server SKUs. However, partitions deduplicated on Server can be used on Client.
- ^ HFS+ does not actually encrypt files: to implement FileVault, OS X creates an HFS+ filesystem in a sparse, encrypted disk image that is automatically mounted over the home directory when the user logs in.
- ^ Reiser4 supports transparent compression and encryption with the cryptcompress plugin which is the default file handler in version 4.1.
- ^ VxFS provides an optional feature called "Storage Checkpoints" which allows for advanced file system snapshots.
- ^ Applies to proprietary ZFS release 30 and ZFS On Linux. Encryption support is not yet available in all OpenZFS ports.[36][37][38]
- ^ LZJB (optimized for performance while providing decent data compression)
LZ4 (faster & higher ratio than lzjb)
gzip levels: 1 (fastest) to 9 (best), default is 6
zstd positive: 1 (fastest) to 19 (best), default is 3
zstd negative: 1(best & default)-10, 20, 30, …, 100, 500, 1000(fastest)
zle: compresses runs of zeros.[39] - ^ disabling copy-on-write (COW) to prevent fragmentation also disables data checksumming
- ^ zlib levels: 1 to 9, default is 3
LZO (no levels) faster than ZLIB, worse ratio
zstd levels: 1 to 15 (higher levels are not available)[40] - ^ none
CRC-32C (default)
crc64
chacha20/poly1305 (When encryption is enabled. Encryption can only be specified for the entire filesystem, not per file or directory)[41] - ^ none (default)
The three currently supported algorithms are gzip, LZ4, zstd.
The compression level may also be optionally specified, as an integer between 0 and 15, e.g. lz4:15. 0 specifies the default compression level, 1 specifies the fastest and lowest compression ratio, and 15 the slowest and best compression ratio.[42] - ^ * 3.7: Added file-level snapshot (only available in Windows Server 2022).[43]
- ^ By using the per-file "integrity stream" that internally stores a checksum per cluster. Those per cluster checksums are not accessible so it is actually a per file feature and not a per block feature. Integrity streams are not enabled by default.
- ^ * 3.9: Added post process compression with LZ4 and ZSTD and transparent decompression.
- ^ a b c Some file system creation implementations reuse block references and support deduplication this way. This is not supported by the standard, but usually works well due to the file system's read-only nature.
- ^ a b c d With software based on GNU Parted.
- ^ a b Variable block size refers to systems which support different block sizes on a per-file basis. (This is similar to extents but a slightly different implementational choice.) The current implementation in UFS2 is read-only.
- ^ Only for "stuffed" inodes
- ^ a b c d Other block:fragment size ratios supported; 8:1 is typical and recommended by most implementations.
- ^ a b c Fragments were planned, but never actually implemented on ext2 and ext3.
- ^ Stores one largest extent in disk, and caches multiple extents in DRAM dynamically.
- ^ a b Tail packing is technically a special case of block suballocation where the suballocation unit size is always 1 byte.
- ^ In "extents" mode.
- ^ Each possible size (in sectors) of file tail has a corresponding suballocation block chain in which all the tails of that size are stored. The overhead of managing suballocation block chains is usually less than the amount of block overhead saved by being able to increase the block size but the process is less efficient if there is not much free disk space.
- ^ Depends on UDF implementation.
- ^ a b c ISO 9660 Level 3 only
- ^ Supported using only EVMS; not currently supported using LVM
- ^ a b c d Provided in Plan 9 from User Space
- ^ a b FUSE based driver available that can eliminate need for iSCSI gateways or SMB shares, but the physical backend store BlueStore only runs on Linux.
- ^ Filesystem driver "Dokany" available that can eliminate need for iSCSI gateways or SMB shares, but the physical backend store BlueStore only runs on Linux.
- ^ a b c d e These are the restrictions imposed by the on-disk directory entry structures themselves. Particular Installable File System drivers may place restrictions of their own on file and directory names; operating systems may also place restrictions of their own, across all filesystems. DOS, Windows, and OS/2 allow only the following characters from the current 8-bit OEM codepage in SFNs: A-Z, 0-9, characters ! # $ % & ' ( ) - @ ^ _ ` { } ~, as well as 0x80-0xFF and 0x20 (SPACE). Specifically, lowercase letters a-z, characters " * / : < > ? \ | + , . ; = [ ], control codes 0x00-0x1F, 0x7F and in some cases also 0xE5 are not allowed.) In LFNs, any UCS-2 Unicode except \ / : ? * " > < | and NUL are allowed in file and directory names across all filesystems. Unix-like systems disallow the characters / and NUL in file and directory names across all filesystems.
- ^ a b c d e For filesystems that have variable allocation unit (block/cluster) sizes, a range of size are given, indicating the maximum volume sizes for the minimum and the maximum possible allocation unit sizes of the filesystem (e.g. 512 bytes and 128 KiB (131.0 KB) for FAT — which is the cluster size range allowed by the on-disk data structures, although some Installable File System drivers and operating systems do not support cluster sizes larger than 32 KiB (32.76 KB)).
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al In these filesystems the directory entries named "." and ".." have special status. Directory entries with these names are not prohibited, and indeed exist as normal directory entries in the on-disk data structures. However, they are mandatory directory entries, with mandatory values, that are automatically created in each directory when it is created; and directories without them are considered corrupt.
- ^ a <