Hard Disk Partitioning

1
Hard Disk Partitioning

• Done By
• Sriram Raghunathan
• And
• Srinivas Patharlapalli Rao

2
What is Partitioning?

• Partitioning a hard disk is the act of defining
  areas of the disk for an operating system to use
  as a volume.
• A disk must be partitioned even if it will be a
  single volume.

3
How are Partitions Classified?

• FAT
• VFAT
• FAT32
• HPFS
• NTFS

4
What is FAT?

• FAT is the acronym for File Allocation Table.
• FAT follows the 8.3 naming convention.
• Updating the FAT table is very important as well
  as time consuming.
• FAT supports only read-only, hidden, system, and
  archive file attributes.

5
Advantages of using FAT

• It is possible to perform an Undelete which is
  not possible under any other file system.
• The FAT file system is best for drives and
  partitions under approximately 200 MB.

6
Dis-Advantages of Using FAT

• Preferably,should not be used on drives or
  partitions over 200 Mb.
• It is not possible to set permissions on files
  that are FAT partitions.
• FAT partitions are limited in size to a maximum
  of 4 Gigabytes (GB) under Windows NT and 2 GB in
  MS-DOS.

7
What is VFAT?

• VFAT is an extension of the FAT file system
  introduced with Windows 95.
• VFAT filenames can contain up to 255 characters,
  spaces, and multiple periods.
• VFAT creates the MS-DOS alias by taking the first
  six characters of the long filename followed by
  the tilde and a numeric trailer.

8
What is FAT 32?

• FAT32 is actually an extension of FAT and VFAT,
  first introduced with Windows 95 OEM Service
  Release 2 (OSR2).
• FAT32 dramatically increases the amount of free
  hard disk space.
• FAT32 isn't compatible with any operating system
  other than Windows 98 and the OSR2 version of
  Windows 95.
• Disk utilities and anti-virus software must be
  FAT32-aware.

9
What Is HPFS?

• The HPFS file system was first introduced with
  OS/2 1.2 to allow for greater access to the
  larger hard drives that were appearing in the
  market and for the growing demands of the network
  server market .

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Advantages of HPFS

• Supports automatic sorting of the directory based
  on filenames.
• Filenames are extended to up to 254 double byte
  characters.
• The unit of allocation is changed from clusters
  to physical sectors (512 bytes), which reduces
  lost disk space.
• HPFS is best for drives in the 200-400 MB range.

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Dis-Advantages Of HPFS

• It is not a very efficient choice for a volume of
  under approximately 200Mb.
• Performance degradation with volumes larger than
  about 400 Mb.
• You cannot set security on HPFS under Windows NT.
  
• HPFS is only supported under Windows NT versions
  3.1, 3.5, and 3.51. Windows NT 4.0 cannot access
  HPFS partitions.

12
What is NTFS?

• NTFS stands for New Technology File System.
  Microsoft created NTFS to compensate for the
  features it felt FAT was lacking.
• Its features include increased fault tolerance
  and enhanced security.

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Advantages of NTFS

• NTFS is best for use on volumes of about 400 MB
  or more.
• The recoverability designed into NTFS is very
  good.

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Dis-Advantages of NTFS

• It is not recommended to use NTFS on a volume
  that is smaller than approximately 400 Mb.
• There is no file encryption built into NTFS.
• It is not possible to format a floppy disk with
  the NTFS file system.