Introducing General Parallel File
System
The IBM® General Parallel File System (GPFS™) is a cluster file system.
This means that it provides concurrent access to a single file system or
set of file systems from multiple nodes. These nodes can all be SAN
attached or a mix of SAN and network attached. This enables high
performance access to this common set of data to support a scale-out
solution or provide a high availability platform.
Storage Area Network-A Storage Area Network (SAN) is a
dedicated, independent high-speed network that interconnects and
delivers shared pools of storage devices to multiple servers.
GPFS has many features beyond common data access including data
replication, policy based storage management, and multi-site operations.
You can create a GPFS cluster of AIX® nodes, Linux nodes, Windows
server nodes, or a mix of all three. GPFS can run on virtualized instances
providing common data access in environments, leverage logical
partitioning, or other hypervisors. Multiple GPFS clusters can share data
within a location or across wide area network (WAN) connections.
The strengths of GPFS
GPFS provides a global namespace, shared file system access
among GPFS clusters, simultaneous file access from multiple nodes,
high recoverability and data availability through replication, the
ability to make changes while a file system is mounted, and
simplified administration even in large environments.
The basic GPFS structure
GPFS is a clustered file system defined over one or more nodes. On
each node in the cluster, GPFS consists of three basic components:
administration commands, a kernel extension, and a multithreaded
daemon.
GPFS cluster configurations
A GPFS cluster can be configured in a variety of ways.
Windows File System
What is file system? Have you ever paid attention to it? This
article aims to introduce Windows file system to you.
In computing, file system controls how data is stored and
retrieved. In other words, it is the method and data structure that
an operating system uses to keep track of files on a disk or
partition.
It separates the data we put in computer into pieces and gives
each piece a name, so the data is easily isolated and identified.
Without file system, information saved in a storage media would
be one large body of data with no way to tell where the
information begins and ends.
Types of Windows File System
Knowing what is file system, let’s learn about the types of
Windows file system.
There are five types of Windows file system, such as FAT12,
FAT16, FAT32, NTFS and exFAT.
FAT32 in Windows
In order to overcome the limited volume size of FAT16 (its
supported maximum volume size is 2GB) Microsoft designed a
new version of the file system FAT32, which then becomes the
most frequently used version of the FAT (File Allocation Table) file
system.
NTFS in Windows
NTFS is the newer drive format. Its full name is New Technology
File System. Starting with Windows NT 3.1, it is the default file
system of the Windows NT family.
Microsoft has released five versions of NTFS, namely v1.0, v1.1,
v1.2, v3.0, and v3.1.
exFAT in Windows
exFAT (Extended File Allocation Table) was designed by Microsoft
back in 2006 and was a part of the company’s Windows CE 6.0
operating system.
This file system was created to be used on flash drives like USB
memory sticks and SD cards, which gives a hint for its precursors:
FAT32 and FAT16.
Comparisons among the Three Types of Windows File System
Everything comes in advantages and shortcomings. Comparisons
among the three types of Windows File System will be showed in
following content to help you make a choice about selecting one
type of file system.
Compatibility
The three types can work in all versions of Windows.
For FAT32, it also works in game consoles and particularly
anything with a USB port; for exFAT, it requires additional
software on Linux; for NTFS, it is read only by default with Mac,
and may be read only by default with some Linux distributions.
With respect to the ideal use, FAT32 is used on removable drives
like USB and Storage Card; exFAT is used for USB flash drives and
other external drivers, especially if you need files of more than 4
GB in size; NTFS can be used for servers.
Security
The files belonging to FAT32 and NTFS can be encrypted, but the
flies belong to the latter can be compressed.
The encryption and compression in Windows are very useful. If
other users do not use your user name to login Windows system,
they will fail to open the encrypted and compressed files that
created with your user name.
In other word, after some files are encrypted, such files only can
be opened when people use your account to login Windows
system.
Note: Although the files have been encrypted and compressed,
people still can open it when they use your user name to login
Windows system. You can apply Hide Partition, a function
in MiniTool Partition Wizard to protect your important data and
privacy better.
Supported Volume Size
For FAT32, the partition size is no larger than 2TB, which means
you cannot format a hard drive larger than 2TB as a single FAT32
partition. NTFS allows you use 64KB clusters to achieve a 256TB
volume. In theory, you can achieve a 16EB volume of exFAT.
Supported File Size
For FAT32, it fails to support the single files whose size is over
4GB, while NTFS file system can support the size of single file
more than 4GB, and for exFAT, the maximum size of single file, in
theory, is 16EB.
In conclusion, compared with NTFS and exFAT, FAT32 comes in
higher compatibility in old operating systems and removable
storage devices, whereas its features limit in single file size and
partition size.
Compared with FAT32 and exFAT, NTFS surpasses in security. And
exFAT features larger volume volume size and single file size.
File System Conversion
Maybe you already have a hard drive featuring FAT32 or NTFS file
system, and you want to make a conversion. In this situation, you
can download MiniTool Partition Wizard to help you complete this
conversion.
Note: If you want to convert FAT32 to NTFS, you can
choose MiniTool Partition Wizard Free. To convert NTFS to FAT32,
you should choose MiniTool Partition Wizard Pro or above editions.
