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Comparison of file systems

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This list isincomplete; you can help byadding missing items.(July 2015)

The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of computerfile systems.

General information

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File system	Creator	Year of introduction	Originaloperating system
DECtape	DEC	1964	PDP-6 Monitor
OS/3x0 FS	IBM	1964	OS/360
Level-D	DEC	1968	TOPS-10
George 3	ICT (laterICL)	1968	George 3
Version 6 Unix file system (V6FS)	Bell Labs	1972	Version 6 Unix
RT-11 file system	DEC	1973	RT-11
Disk Operating System (GEC DOS)	GEC	1973	Core Operating System
CP/M file system	Digital Research (Gary Kildall)	1974	CP/M^[1]^[2]
Files-11 ODS-1	DEC	1975	RSX-11
GEC DOS filing system extended	GEC	1977	OS4000
FAT (8-bit)	Microsoft (Marc McDonald) forNCR	1977	Microsoft Standalone Disk BASIC-80 (laterMicrosoft Standalone Disk BASIC-86)
DOS 3.x	Apple	1978	Apple DOS
UCSD p-System	UCSD	1978	UCSD p-System
CBM DOS	Commodore	1978	Commodore BASIC
Atari DOS	Atari	1979	Atari 8-bit
Version 7 Unix file system (V7FS)	Bell Labs	1979	Version 7 Unix
Files-11 ODS-2	DEC	1979	OpenVMS
FAT12	Seattle Computer Products (Tim Paterson)	1980	QDOS/86-DOS (later IBMPC DOS 1.0)
ProDOS	Apple	1980	Apple SOS (laterProDOS 8)
DFS	Acorn Computers Ltd	1982	Acorn BBC Micro MOS
ADFS	Acorn Computers Ltd	1983	Acorn Electron (laterArthur/RISC OS)
FFS	Kirk McKusick	1983	4.2BSD
FAT16	IBM,Microsoft	1984	PC DOS 3.0,MS-DOS 3.0
MFS	Apple	1984	System 1
Elektronika BK tape format	NPO "Scientific centre" (nowSitronics)	1985	Vilnius Basic, BK monitor program
HFS	Apple	1985	System 2.1
Amiga OFS^[1]	Metacomco forCommodore	1985	Amiga OS
GEMDOS	Digital Research	1985	Atari TOS
NWFS	Novell	1985	NetWare 286
High Sierra	Ecma International	1986	MSCDEX for MS-DOS 3.1/3.2^[3]
FAT16B	Compaq	1987	Compaq MS-DOS 3.31
Minix V1 FS	Andrew S. Tanenbaum	1987	MINIX 1.0
Amiga FFS	Commodore	1988	Amiga OS 1.3
ISO 9660:1988	Ecma International,ISO	1988	MS-DOS,"classic" Mac OS, andAmigaOS
HPFS	IBM &Microsoft	1989	OS/2 1.2
ISO 9660:Rock Ridge extension	IEEE	1990 c. 1990	Unix
JFS1	IBM	1990	AIX^[a]
VxFS	VERITAS	1991	SVR4.0
ext	Rémy Card	1992	Linux
AdvFS	DEC	1993^[4]	Digital Unix
NTFS	Microsoft (Gary Kimura,Tom Miller)	1993	Windows NT 3.1
LFS	Margo Seltzer	1993	Berkeley Sprite
ext2	Rémy Card	1993	Linux,Hurd
Xiafs	Q. Frank Xia	1993	Linux
UFS1	Kirk McKusick	1994	4.4BSD
XFS	SGI	1994	IRIX
HFS	IBM	1994	MVS/ESA (nowz/OS)
FAT16X	Microsoft	1995	MS-DOS 7.0 /Windows 95
ISO 9660:Joliet extension	Microsoft	1995	Microsoft Windows,Linux,"classic" Mac OS, andFreeBSD
UDF	ISO/ECMA/OSTA	1995	N/a
FAT32,FAT32X	Microsoft	1996	MS-DOS 7.1 /Windows 95 OSR2^[b]
QFS	Sun Microsystems	1996	Solaris
GPFS	IBM	1996	AIX,Linux
Be File System	Be Inc. (D. Giampaolo, Cyril Meurillon)	1996	BeOS
Minix V2 FS	Andrew S. Tanenbaum	1997	MINIX 2.0
HFS Plus	Apple	1998	Mac OS 8.1
NSS	Novell	1998	NetWare 5
PolyServe File System (PSFS)	PolyServe	1998	Windows,Linux
Files-11 ODS-5	DEC	1998	OpenVMS V7.2
WAFL	NetApp	1998	Data ONTAP
ext3	Stephen Tweedie	1999	Linux
ISO 9660:1999	Ecma International,ISO	1999	Microsoft Windows,Linux,"classic" Mac OS,FreeBSD, andAmigaOS
JFS	IBM	1999	OS/2 Warp Server for e-business
GFS	Sistina (Red Hat)	2000	Linux
ReiserFS	Namesys	2001	Linux
zFS	IBM	2001	z/OS (backported toOS/390)
FATX	Microsoft	2002	Xbox
UFS2	Kirk McKusick	2002	FreeBSD 5.0
OCFS	Oracle Corporation	2002	Linux
SquashFS	Phillip Lougher, Robert Lougher	2002	Linux
VMFS2	VMware	2002	VMware ESX Server 2.0
Lustre	Cluster File Systems^[5]	2002	Linux
Fossil	Bell Labs	2003	Plan 9 version 4
Google File System	Google	2003	Linux
ZFS	Sun Microsystems	2004	Solaris
Reiser4	Namesys	2004	Linux
Non-Volatile File System	Palm, Inc.	2004	Palm OS Garnet
BeeGFS	Fraunhofer/ThinkParQ	2005	Linux
GlusterFS	Gluster Inc.	2005	Linux
Minix V3 FS	Andrew S. Tanenbaum	2005	MINIX 3
OCFS2	Oracle Corporation	2005	Linux
NILFS	NTT	2005	Linux
VMFS3	VMware	2005	VMware ESX Server 3.0
GFS2	Red Hat	2006	Linux
ext4	various	2006	Linux
exFAT	Microsoft	2006	Windows CE 6.0
Btrfs	Chris Mason	2007	Linux
JXFS	Hyperion Entertainment	2008	AmigaOS 4.1
HAMMER	Matthew Dillon	2008	DragonFly BSD 2.0
LSFS	StarWind Software	2009	Linux,FreeBSD,Windows
UniFS	Nasuni	2009	Cloud
CASL	Nimble Storage	2010	Linux
OrangeFS	Omnibond and others	2011	Linux
VMFS5	VMware	2011	vSphere 5.0+
CHFS	University of Szeged	2011	NetBSD 6.0+
ReFS	Microsoft	2012	Windows Server 2012
F2FS	Samsung Electronics	2012	Linux
bcachefs	Kent Overstreet	2015	Linux
APFS	Apple	2016	macOS High Sierra,iOS 10.3
NOVA	University of California, San Diego	2017	Linux
BlueStore/CephFS	Red Hat,UC, Santa Cruz	2017	Linux
HAMMER2	Matthew Dillon^[6]	2017	DragonFly BSD 5.0
EROFS	Huawei^[7]	2018	Linux,Android
VaultFS	Swiss Vault	2022	Linux / Unix

Metadata

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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	Metadatachecksum/ ECC
bcachefs	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
BeeGFS	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	?	Yes	Yes
CP/M file system	No	No	Yes^[c]	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
DECtape^[8]	No	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
Elektronika BK tape format	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes
Level-D	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes(date only)	Yes	Yes	Yes(FILDAE)	No	No	No
RT-11^[9]	No	No	Yes(date only)	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes
Version 6 Unix file system (V6FS)^[10]	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No
Version 7 Unix file system (V7FS)^[11]	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No
exFAT	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No
FAT12/FAT16/FAT32	No	No	Yes	Yes	No^[d]	No	No	No	No^[e]	No
HPFS	Yes^[f]	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	?	Yes	No
NTFS	Yes	Yes^[g]	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes^[h]	Yes	No
ReFS	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	?	Yes^[i]	Yes
HFS	No	No	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	No	Yes	No
HFS Plus	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	?	Yes	No
FFS	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	No
UFS1	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes^[j]	Yes^[j]	No^[k]	No
UFS2	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes^[j]	Yes^[j]	Yes	Partial
HAMMER	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	?	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
HAMMER2	Yes	Yes	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
LFS	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	No
EROFS	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
ext	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
Xiafs	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	No
ext2	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes^[l]	Yes^[l]	Yes	No
ext3	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes^[l]	Yes^[l]	Yes	No
ext4	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes^[l]	Yes^[l]	Yes	Partial^[m]
NOVA	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes
Lustre	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
F2FS	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes^[l]	Yes^[l]	Yes	No
GPFS	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
GFS	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes^[l]	Yes^[l]	Yes	No
NILFS	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes
ReiserFS	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes^[l]	Yes^[l]	Yes	No
Reiser4	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	No
OCFS	No	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No
OCFS2	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	No
XFS	Yes	Yes	Yes^[n]	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes^[l]	Yes	Yes
JFS	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
QFS	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No
BFS	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	No
AdvFS	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No
NSS	Yes	Yes	Yes^[o]	Yes^[o]	Yes	Yes^[o]	Yes	?	Yes^[p]^[q]	No
NWFS	Yes	?	Yes^[o]	Yes^[o]	Yes	Yes^[o]	Yes	?	Yes^[p]^[q]	No
Files-11 ODS-1^[15]	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	Yes^[r]	No
Files-11 ODS-2^[16]	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	?	Yes^[r]	No
Files-11 ODS-5	Yes	Yes	Yes	?	?	Yes	Yes	?	Yes^[r]	No
APFS	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
VxFS	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	?	Yes^[l]	No
UDF	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Fossil	Yes	Yes^[s]	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	No
ZFS	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes^[t]	Yes^[u]	Yes
Btrfs	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Minix V1	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
Minix V2	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	No
Minix V3	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	No
VMFS2	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	No
VMFS3	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	No
ISO 9660:1988	No	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
ISO 9660:Rock Ridge extension	Yes	Yes	No	Yes^[v]	Yes	No	No^[w]	No^[x]	No^[x]	No
ISO 9660:Joliet extension	No	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
ISO 9660:1999	No	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
High Sierra	No	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
SquashFS	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	No
BlueStore/CephFS	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	?	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
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	Metadatachecksum/ ECC

All widely used file systems record a last modified time stamp (also known as "mtime"). It is not included in the table.

Individual file systems may record additional special types of date and time stamps. For example, the specification ofISO 9660 includes a "File Expiration Date and Time" and a "File Effective Date and Time".^[17]

Features

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File capabilities

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File system	Hard links	Symbolic links	Block journaling	Metadata-only journaling	Case-sensitive	Case-preserving	File Change Log	XIP
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^[y]	Yes	?	?
Version 6 Unix file system (V6FS)	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	No
Version 7 Unix file system (V7FS)	Yes	No^[z]	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	No
exFAT	No	No	No	Partial (withTexFAT only)	No	Yes	No	No
FAT12	No	No	No	Partial (withTFAT12 only)	No	Partial (withVFAT LFNs only)	No	No
FAT16 /FAT16B /FAT16X	No	No	No	Partial (withTFAT16 only)	No	Partial (withVFAT LFNs only)	No	No
FAT32 /FAT32X	No	No	No?	Partial (withTFAT32 only)	No	Partial (withVFAT LFNs only)	No	No
GFS	Yes	Yes^[aa]	Yes	Yes^[ab]	Yes	Yes	No	No
HPFS	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	No	No
NTFS	Yes	Yes^[ac]	No^[ad]	Yes^[ad] (2000)	Yes^[ae]	Yes	Yes	?
HFS Plus	Yes^[19]	Yes	No	Yes^[af]	Optional^[ag]	Yes	Yes^[ah]	No
FFS	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	No
UFS1	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	No
UFS2	Yes	Yes	No	Yes^[ai]^[24]^[aj]	Yes	Yes	No	?
HAMMER	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	?	No
HAMMER2	Yes	Yes	?	?	?	?	?	?
LFS	Yes	Yes	Yes^[ak]	No	Yes	Yes	No	No
EROFS	Yes	Yes	No	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^[al]
ext3	Yes	Yes	Yes (2001)^[am]	Yes (2001)	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
ext4	Yes	Yes	Yes^[am]	Yes	Yes, optional^[27]	Yes	No	Yes
NOVA	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
F2FS	Yes	Yes	Yes^[ak]	No	Yes	Yes	No	No
Lustre	Yes	Yes	Yes^[am]	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
NILFS	Yes	Yes	Yes^[ak]	No	Yes	Yes	No	No
ReiserFS	Yes	Yes	Yes^[an]	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^[am]	Yes	Yes^[ao]	Yes	Yes	?
JFS	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes (1990)	Yes^[ap]	Yes	No	?
QFS	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
BFS	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	?	No
NSS	Yes	Yes	?	Yes	Yes^[aq]	Yes^[aq]	Yes^[ar]	No
NWFS	Yes^[as]	Yes^[as]	No	No	Yes^[aq]	Yes^[aq]	Yes^[ar]	No
Files-11 ODS-1^[15]	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
Files-11 ODS-2^[16]	Yes	Yes^[at]	No	Yes	No	No	Yes	No
Files-11 ODS-5	Yes	Yes^[at]	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	?
UDF	Yes	Yes	Yes^[ak]	Yes^[ak]	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
VxFS	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	?
Fossil	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
ZFS	Yes	Yes	Yes^[au]	No^[au]	Yes	Yes	No	No
Btrfs	Yes	Yes	Yes^[av]	No	Yes	Yes	?	?
bcachefs	Yes	Yes	Yes^[aw]	No	Yes, optional^[29]	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^[ax]	Yes	?	?	Yes^[ae]	Yes	?	?
ISO 9660	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
ISO 9660:Rock Ridge extension	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	No
ISO 9660:Joliet extension	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

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	Datachecksum/ECC	Persistent Cache	Multiple Devices	Compression	Self-healing^[ay]
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^[30]	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^[az]	No
FAT16 /FAT16B /FAT16X	No	No	No	No	No	No	Partial^[az]	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^[ba]^[32]	No	No	No	Yes	No
HFS Plus	No	No^[bb]	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
HAMMER2	Yes	?	Yes	Yes	?	?	Yes	Pending
LFS	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
EROFS	No	No	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	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^[33]	No	No^[34]	No	No	No	No
NOVA	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	No	No	?
F2FS	No	Yes, experimental^[35]	No	No	No	No	Yes	No
Lustre	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	No
NILFS	Yes, continuous^[ak]	No	No	Yes	No	No	No	No
ReiserFS	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
Reiser4	?	Yes^[bc]	?	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^[36]	No^[34]	No	No	No	No
JFS	?	No	?	No	No	No	only in JFS1 on AIX^[37]	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
Files-11 ODS-2	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
Files-11 ODS-5	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	?
UDF	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
VxFS	Yes^[bd]	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	No
Fossil	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	No
ZFS	Yes	Yes^[be]	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes^[bf]	Yes
Btrfs	Yes	No	Yes	Yes^[bg]	No	Yes	Yes^[bh]	Yes
bcachefs	Yes	Yes	No	Yes^[bi]	Yes^[43]	Yes	Yes^[bj]	Yes^[bk]
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^[bl]	No	Yes	No^[bm]	No	No	No^[bn]	No^[bm]
ISO 9660	No	No	No^[bo]	No	No	No	No	No
ISO 9660:Rock Ridge extension	No	No	No^[bo]	No	No	No	No	No
ISO 9660:Joliet extension	No	No	No^[bo]	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	Datachecksum/ECC	Persistent Cache	Multiple Devices	Compression	Self-healing^[ay]

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
exFAT	misc.	No	No	No	No	No
FAT16 /FAT16B /FAT16X	misc.	Yes^[bp]	No	Yes^[bp]	No	No
FAT32 /FAT32X	misc.	Yes^[bp]	No	Yes^[bp]	No	No
NTFS	Windows	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
ReFS	Windows	?	Yes	?	No	No
HFS	macOS	No	No	No	No	No
HFS Plus	macOS	No	Yes	No	Yes	No
APFS	macOS	?	Yes	?	Yes	?
HAMMER	DragonflyBSD	?	?	?	?	?
EROFS	Linux	Yes	No	No	No	Yes
ext2^[48]	Linux	Yes	No	Yes	No	No
ext3^[48]	Linux	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
ext4^[48]	Linux	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
NOVA	Linux	No	No	No	No	No
F2FS^[49]	Linux	Yes	No	No	No	No
Lustre^[50]	Linux	?	Yes	No	No	Yes
XFS^[51]	Linux	No	Yes	No^[52]	No^[52]	No
JFS2	AIX	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
JFS^[53]	Linux	Yes	No	No	No	No
NTFS^[54]	Linux	Yes	No	Yes	No	No
ReiserFS^[55]	Linux	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
Reiser4^[56]	Linux	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
Btrfs^[57]	Linux	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
bcachefs^[43]	Linux	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes
NILFS^[58]	Linux	No	Yes	No	Yes	No
ZFS	misc.	No	Yes	No	Yes	Partial^[59]
UFS2^[60]	FreeBSD	Yes	Yes (FreeBSD 10.0-RELEASE or later)	No	No	No
SquashFS	Linux	No	No	No	No	No
BlueStore/CephFS	Linux	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes

Allocation and layout policies

[edit]

File system	Sparse files	Block suballocation	Tail packing	Extents	Variable block size^[bq]	Inline data (resident files)	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^[61]^[62]
Version 6 Unix file system (V6FS)	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	?	No
Version 7 Unix file system (V7FS)	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	?	No
exFAT	No	No	No	Partial (only if the file fits into one contiguous block range)	No	No	No	No	Yes (Linux)
FAT12	Partial (only inside of compressed volumes)^[63]	Partial (only inside ofStacker 3/4 andDriveSpace 3 compressed volumes^[31])	No	Partial (only inside of compressed volumes)^[64]	No	No	No	No	Yes (Linux)
FAT16 /FAT16B /FAT16X	Partial (only inside of compressed volumes)^[63]	Partial (only inside ofStacker 3/4 andDriveSpace 3 compressed volumes^[31])	No	Partial (only inside of compressed volumes)^[64]	No	No	No	No	Yes (Linux)
FAT32 /FAT32X	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes (Linux)
GFS	Yes	No	Partial^[br]	No	No	?	No	?	Yes
HPFS	No	No	No	Yes	No	?	No	?	Yes (Linux)
NTFS	Yes	Partial	No	Yes	No	Yes (approximately 700 bytes)	No	?	Yes (NT 6.1+; Linux)
HFS Plus	No	No	No	Yes	No	?	No	?	Yes (macOS)
FFS	Yes	8:1^[bs]	No	No	No	No	No	?	No
UFS1	Yes	8:1^[bs]	No	No	No	No	No	?	No
UFS2	Yes	8:1^[bs]	No	No	Read-only so far	No	No	?	Yes^[65]^[66]
HAMMER	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	Yes	?
HAMMER2	?	?	?	?	?	Yes	?	Yes	?
LFS	Yes	8:1^[bs]	No	No	No	?	No	Yes	?
EROFS	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	No
ext	Yes	No	No	No	No	?	No	No	No
Xiafs	Yes	No	No	No	No	?	No	?	?
ext2	Yes	No^[bt]	No	No	No	?	No	No	Yes
ext3	Yes	No^[bt]	No	No	No	?	No	No	Yes
ext4	Yes	No^[bt]	No	Yes	No	Yes (inode size - 96B)^[67]	Yes	No	Yes
NOVA	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	?	No	Yes	?
F2FS	Yes	No	No	Partial^[bu]	No	Yes (approximately 3.4KB)^[68]	Yes	Yes	Yes^[69]
Lustre	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	?	Yes	?	?
NILFS	Yes	No	No	No	No	?	Yes	Yes	Yes (Linux NILFS2)
ReiserFS	Yes	Yes^[bv]	Yes	No	No	No	No	?	?
Reiser4	Yes	Yes^[bv]	Yes	Yes^[bw]	No	No	Yes	?	Testing^[70]
OCFS	?	No	No	Yes	No	?	No	?	?
OCFS2	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	?	Yes (Linux)
XFS	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	No (not accepted)^[71]	Yes	Yes, on request^[72]	Yes (Linux)
JFS	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes (256 bytes)^[bx]	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^[by]	No	No	No	?	No	?	?
Files-11 ODS-5	?	No	No	Yes	No	No	No	?	?
VxFS	Yes	?	No	Yes	No	?	No	?	?
UDF	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	Yes^[73]	Depends on implementation.	Yes, forwrite once read many media	No
Fossil	?	No	No	No	No	?	No	?	?
ZFS	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes (112 bytes)^[74]	Yes	Yes	Yes
Btrfs	Yes	Yes	No^[75]	Yes	Yes	Yes (2 KiB)^[75]	Yes	Yes	Yes
bcachefs	Yes	Yes^[bz]	Yes^[ca]	Yes	No	Yes (half block size)^[43]	Yes	Yes	Yes^[43]
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	ISO 9660 Level 3 only	No	?	No	No	No
ISO 9660:Rock Ridge extension	No	No	No	extended from ISO 9660	No	?	No	No	No
ISO 9660:Joliet extension	No	No	No	extended from ISO 9660	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 block size^[bq]	Inline data (resident files)	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^[76]
DECtape	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
BeeGFS	No	Yes	?	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
APFS	No	Partial (read-only with apfs-fuse^[77] or linux-apfs^[78])	Yes (Since macOS Sierra)	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,^[79] available as a kernel module orFUSE driver for earlier versions)	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes (available as aFUSE driver)	No	No	No	Yes (available as aFUSE 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^[b]	Yes	Yes	Yes^[b]	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 (fromOS/2 1.2)	?	No	?	?	No
NTFS	Needs 3rd-party drivers	Yes Native since Linux Kernel 5.15NTFS3. Older kernels may use backportedNTFS3 driver orntfs-3g^[80]	Read only, write support needsParagon NTFS orntfs-3g	Needs 3rd-party drivers likeParagon NTFS for Win98,DiskInternals NTFS Reader	Yes	No	Yes withntfs-3g	?	Yes withntfs-3g	No	Yes withntfs-3g	?	With third party tools
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+^[81]	Yes	No	?	Yes	No	?	No	No
HFS Plus	No	Partial - writing support only to unjournalled FS	Yes	No	Needs Paragon HFS+^[81]	Yes fromMac OS 8.1	No	?	with addon	No	?	No	No
FFS	No	?	Yes	No	?	?	Yes	?	?	?	?	?	No
UFS1	No	Partial - read only	Yes	No	Partial (withufs2tools, read only)	?	Yes	No	?	?	Yes	?	No
UFS2	No	Yes	Yes	No	Partial (withufs2tools, read only)	?	Yes	No	?	?	?	?	No
LFS	No	?	?	No	No	?	No	No	?	?	?	?	No
EROFS	No	Yes	Needs - since erofs-utils 1.4	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes
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 Experimental port available to 2.6.32 and later^[82]^[83]	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
ext2	No	Yes	Needs Paragon ExtFS^[84] orext2fsx	Partial (read-only, with explore2fs)^[85]	Needs Paragon ExtFS^[86] or partial with Ext2 IFS^[87] or ext2fsd^[88]	No	Yes	No	Yes	?	?	?	No
ext3	No	Yes	Needs Paragon ExtFS^[84] or partial withext2fsx (journal not updated on writing)	Partial (read-only, with explore2fs)^[85]	Needs Paragon ExtFS^[86] or partial with Ext2 IFS^[87] or ext2fsd^[88]	Partial (read only)^{[citation needed]}	Yes^[89]	No	with addon	?	Yes	?	Yes
ext4	No	Yes	Needs Paragon ExtFS^[84]	No	Yes, with the optionalWSL2; physical and VHDX virtual disks.^[90]^[91]	?	Yes since FreeBSD 12.0^[89]	No	with addon	?	?	?	Yes
NOVA	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
F2FS	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes
Lustre	No	Yes^[92]	?	No	No	?	No	?	?	?	Yes	?	No
NILFS	No	Yes as an external kernel module	?	No	?	?	No	?	?	?	?	?	No
ReiserFS	No	Yes - until 6.13	?	No	No	?	Partial - Read Only from 6.0 to 10.x^[93] and dropped in 11.0^[94]^[95]	?	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	Client^[96]	?	No	No	?	No	No	?	?	Yes	?	No
Be File System	No	Partial - read-only	?	No	No	?	No	No	Yes	?	?	?	No
NSS	No	Yes via EVMS^[cb]	?	No	No	?	No	No	?	?	?	?	No
NWFS	Partial (with Novell drivers)	?	?	No	No	?	Yes	No	?	?	?	?	No
Files-11 ODS-2	No	?	?	No	No	?	No	No	?	?	?	?	No
Files-11 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^[cc]	Yes^[cc]	No	No	No	Yes^[cc]	No	No	No	Yes^[cc]	?	No
ZFS	No	Yes withFUSE^[97] or as an external kernel module^[98]	Yes with Read/Write Developer Preview^[99]	No	With third-party software (OpenZFS).^[100]	No	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	No	No
Btrfs	No	Yes	?	No	Yes with WinBtrfs^[101]	?	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
ISO 9660:Rock Ridge extension	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	?	No
ISO 9660:Joliet extension	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.^[102]^[103])	No	No	No	No	No	No
BlueStore/CephFS	No	Yes	Client^[cd]	No	Client^[ce]	No	Client^[cd]	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	Maximumfilename length	Allowable characters in directory entries^[cf]	Maximum pathname length	Maximum file size	Maximum volume size^[cg]	Max number of files
AdvFS	255 characters	Any byte except/ andNUL^[ch]	No limit defined^[ci]	16 TiB (17.59 TB)	16 TiB (17.59 TB)	?
APFS	255UTF-8 characters^{[citation needed]}	AnyUnicode 9.0 character^[104] except/ andNUL^[ch]	?	8 EiB (9.223 EB)	?	2⁶³^[105]
bcachefs	512 bytes^[106]	Any byte except/ andNUL^[ch]	No limit defined	8 EiB (9.22 EB)^[cj]	2040 PiB (2.3 EB)^[ck]	2⁶⁴^[cl]
BeeGFS	255 bytes	Any byte exceptNUL^[ch]	No limit defined^[ci]	16 EiB (18.44 EB)	16 EiB (18.44 EB)	?
BFS	255 bytes	Any byte exceptNUL^[ch]	No limit defined^[ci]	12,288bytes to 260 GiB (279.1 GB)^[cm]	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^[107]	Not limited	Not limited, default is 100,000 files per directory^[108]
Btrfs	255 bytes	Any byte except/ andNUL^[ch]	No limit defined	16 EiB (18.44 EB)	16 EiB (18.44 EB)	2⁶⁴
CBM DOS	16 bytes	Any byte exceptNUL	No directory hierarchy (flat file system)	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 sinceCP/M 2.2)	32 MiB (33.55 MB)	512 MiB (536.8 MB)	?
DECtape	6.3	A–Z, 0–9	DTxN:FILNAM.EXT = 15	369,280bytes (577 × 640)	369,920bytes (578 × 640)	?
Disk Operating System (GEC DOS)	?	?	?	? at least 131,072bytes	?	?
Elektronika BK tape format	16 bytes	?	No directory hierarchy (flat file system)	64 KiB (65.53 KB)	Not limited. Approx. 800 KiB (819.2 KB) (one side) for 90 min cassette	?
EROFS	255 bytes	Any byte except/ andNUL^[ch]	No limit defined^[ci]	16 EiB (18.44 EB)	1 EiB (1.152 EB)	2⁶⁴
exFAT	255UTF-16 characters	Unicode except for control codes 0x0000 - 0x001F or " * / : < > ? \ \|^[109]	32,760 characters with each path component no more than 255 characters^[110]	16 EiB (18.44 EB)^[110]	64 ZiB (75.55 ZB) (2⁷⁶ bytes)	?
ext	255 bytes	Any byte except/ andNUL^[ch]	No limit defined^[ci]	2 GiB (2.147 GB)	2 GiB (2.147 GB)	?
ext2	255 bytes	Any byte except/ andNUL^[ch]	No limit defined^[ci]	16 GiB (17.17 GB) to 2 TiB (2.199 TB)^[cg]	2 TiB (2.199 TB) to 32 TiB (35.18 TB)	?
ext3	255 bytes	Any byte except/ andNUL^[ch]	No limit defined^[ci]	16 GiB (17.17 GB) to 2 TiB (2.199 TB)^[cg]	2 TiB (2.199 TB) to 32 TiB (35.18 TB)	?
ext4	255 bytes^[111]	Any byte except/ andNUL^[ch]	No limit defined^[ci]	16 GiB (17.17 GB) to 16 TiB (17.59 TB)^[cg]^[112]	1 EiB (1.152 EB)	2³² (staticinode limit specified atcreation)
F2FS	255 bytes	Any byte except/ andNUL^[ch]	No limit defined^[ci]	4,228,213,756KiB (4.329TB)	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 (flat file system)	?	?	?
FAT12/FAT16	8.3 (255UCS-2 characters with LFN)^[cn]	SFN:OEM A-Z, 0–9, ! # $ % & ' ( ) - @ ^ _ ` { } ~, 0x80-0xFF, 0x20. LFN:Unicode except NUL, " * / : < > ? \ \|^[cf]^[ch]	No limit defined^[ci]	32 MiB (33.55 MB) (4 GiB (4.294 GB))^[co]	1 MiB (1.048 MB) to 32 MiB (33.55 MB)	?
FAT16B/FAT16X	8.3 (255UCS-2 characters with LFN)^[cn]	SFN:OEM A-Z, 0–9, ! # $ % & ' ( ) - @ ^ _ ` { } ~, 0x80-0xFF, 0x20. LFN:Unicode except NUL, " * / : < > ? \ \|^[cf]^[cn]^[ch]	No limit defined^[ci]	2 (4)GiB^[co] (2.147 GB)	16 MiB (16.77 MB) to 2 (4)GiB (2.147 GB)	?
FAT32/FAT32X	8.3 (255UCS-2 characters with LFN)^[cn]	SFN:OEM A-Z, 0–9, ! # $ % & ' ( ) - @ ^ _ ` { } ~, 0x80-0xFF, 0x20. LFN:Unicode except NUL, " * / : < > ? \ \|^[cf]^[cn]^[ch]	32,760 characters with each path component no more than 255 characters^[110]	4 GiB (4.294 GB)^[110]	512 MiB (536.8 MB) to 16 TiB (17.59 TB)^[cp]	?
FATX	42 bytes^[cn]	ASCII.	No limit defined^[ci]	2 GiB (2.147 GB)	16 MiB (16.77 MB) to 2 GiB (2.147 GB)	?
FFS	255 bytes	Any byte except/ andNUL^[ch]	No limit defined^[ci]	4 GiB (4.294 GB)	256 TiB (281.4 TB)	?
Files-11 ODS-1^[15]	9.3 inRADIX-50	A–Z,0–9,$	No limit defined; only two-level paths supported by operating systems	2 TiB (2.199 TB)	2 TiB (2.199 TB)	2¹⁶-1
Files-11 ODS-2^[16]	20 bytes	A–Z,0–9,$,-,_	4,096 bytes^[cq]	2 TiB (2.199 TB)	2 TiB (2.199 TB)	2²⁴-1
Files-11 ODS-5	236 bytes^[cr]	ISO 8859-1 orUCS-2	4,096 bytes^[cq]	2 TiB (2.199 TB)	2 TiB (2.199 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 131,072bytes	?	?
GEMDOS	8.3	A-Z, a-z, 0-9 ! @ # $ % ^ & ( ) + - = ~ ` ; ' " , < > \| [ ] ( ) _^[114]	?	?	?	?
GFS2	255 bytes	Any byte except/ andNUL^[ch]	No limit defined^[ci]	100 TiB (109.95 TB) to 8 EiB (9.223 EB)^[cs]	100 TiB (109.95 TB) to 8 EiB (9.223 EB)^[cs]	?
GFS	255 bytes	Any byte except/ andNUL^[ch]	No limit defined^[ci]	2 TiB (2.199 TB) to 8 EiB (9.223 EB)^[ct]	2 TiB (2.199 TB) to 8 EiB (9.223 EB)^[ct]	?
GPFS	255 UTF-8codepoints	Any byte except NUL^[ch]	No limit defined^[ci]	9 EiB (10.37 EB)	524,288 YiB (2⁹⁹ bytes)	?
HAMMER	1023 bytes^[116]	Any byte except/ andNUL^[ch]	?	?	1 EiB (1.152 EB)^[117]	?
HFS	31 bytes	Any byte except:; inmacOS,: in file names is converted to/ in the file system, and/ andNUL are disallowed^[ch]	Unlimited	2 GiB (2.147 GB)	2 TiB (2.199 TB)	?
HFS Plus	255UTF-16 code units^[cu]	Any validUnicode character except:;^[cv] inmacOS,: in file names is converted to/ in the file system, and/ andNUL are disallowed^[ch]	Unlimited	slightly less than 8 EiB (9.223 EB)	slightly less than 8 EiB (9.223 EB)^[118]^[119]	?
High Sierra Format	?	?	?	?	?	?
HPFS	255 bytes	Any byte except NUL^[cw]	No limit defined^[ci]	2 GiB (2.147 GB)	2 TiB (2.199 TB)^[cx]	?
IBM SFS	8.8	?	Non-hierarchical^[120]	?	?	?
ISO 9660:1988	Level 1: 8.3, Level 2 & 3: ~ 180	Depends on Level^[cy]	~ 180 bytes?	4 GiB (4.294 GB) (Level 1 & 2) to 8 TiB (8.796 TB) (Level 3)^[cz]	8 TiB (8.796 TB)^[da]	?
ISO 9660:1999	?	?	?	?	?	?
JFS	255 bytes	AnyUnicode except NUL	No limit defined^[ci]	4 PiB (4.503 PB)	32 PiB (36.02 PB)	?
JFS1	255 bytes	Any byte except/ andNUL^[ch]	No limit defined^[ci]	8 EiB (9.223 EB)	512 TiB (562.9 TB) to 4 PiB (4.503 PB)	?
ISO 9660:Joliet extension	64 characters	AllUCS-2 code except *, /, \, :, ;, and ?^[121]	?	same asISO 9660:1988	same asISO 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); 206,158,430,208SIXBIT bytes	Approx 12 GiB (12.88 GB) (64 × 178 MiB (186.6 MB))	?
Lustre	255 bytes	Any byte except NUL^[ch]	No limit defined^[ci]	16 EiB (18.44 EB) onZFS	16 EiB (18.44 EB)	?
MFS	255 bytes	Any byte except:	No directory hierarchy (flat file system)	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^[ch]	No limit defined^[ci]	256.5MiB (268.9MB)^[db]	64 MiB (67.10 MB)	?
Minix V2 FS	14 or 30 bytes, set at filesystem creation time	Any byte except NUL^[ch]	No limit defined^[ci]	2 GiB (2.147 GB)^[db]	1 GiB (1.073 GB)	?
Minix V3 FS	60 bytes	Any byte except NUL^[ch]	No limit defined^[ci]	2 GiB (2.147 GB)	4 GiB (4.294 GB)	?
NILFS	255 bytes	Any byte except/ andNUL^[ch]	No limit defined^[ci]	8 EiB (9.223 EB)	8 EiB (9.223 EB)	?
NOVA	255 bytes	Any byte except/ andNUL^[ch]	No limit defined^[ci]	16 EiB (18.44 EB)	16 EiB (18.44 EB)	?
NSS	256 characters	Depends on namespace used^[dc]	Only limited by client	8 TiB (8.796 TB)	8 TiB (8.796 TB)	?
NTFS	255 characters	InWin32 namespace: anyUTF-16 code unit (case-insensitive) except/\:*"?<>\| as well asNUL InPOSIX namespace: anyUTF-16 code unit (case-sensitive) except/ as well asNUL^[122]	32,767 characters with each path component (directory or filename) up to 255 characters long.^[ci] However, the limit is approximate due to UNC, and some limitations may be removed on demand.^[123]	16 TiB (17.59 TB) to 8 PiB (9.007 PB)^[dd]^[124]	16 TiB (17.59 TB) to 8 PiB (9.007 PB)^[dd]^[124]	2³²
NWFS	80 bytes^[de]	Depends on namespace used^[dc]	No limit defined^[ci]	4 GiB (4.294 GB)	1 TiB (1.099 TB)	?
OCFS	255 bytes	Any byte except NUL^[ch]	No limit defined^[ci]	8 TiB (8.796 TB)	8 TiB (8.796 TB)	?
OCFS2	255 bytes	Any byte except NUL^[ch]	No limit defined^[ci]	4 PiB (4.503 PB)	4 PiB (4.503 PB)	?
QFS	255 bytes	Any byte except NUL^[ch]	No limit defined^[ci]	16 EiB (18.44 EB)^[df]	4 PiB (4.503 PB)^[df]	?
ReFS	255 UTF-16 characters^[125]	InWin32 namespace: anyUTF-16 code unit (case-insensitive) except/\:*"?<>\| as well asNUL InPOSIX namespace: anyUTF-16 code unit (case-sensitive) except/ as well asNUL^[125]^[126]	32,767 characters with each path component (directory or filename) up to 255 characters long^[125]	16 EiB (18.44 EB)^[125]^[127]	1 YiB (1.208 YB)^[125]	?
ReiserFS	4032 bytes/255 characters	Any byte except/ andNUL^[ch]	No limit defined^[ci]	8 TiB (8.796 TB)^[dg] (v3.6), 4 GiB (4.294 GB) (v3.5)	16 TiB (17.59 TB)	?
Reiser4	3976 bytes	Any byte except/ andNUL^[ch]	No limit defined^[ci]	8 TiB (8.796 TB) on x86	?	?
ISO 9660:Rock Ridge extension	255 bytes	Any byte except/ andNUL^[ch]	No limit defined^[ci]	same asISO 9660:1988	same asISO 9660:1988	?
RT-11	6.3 inRADIX-50	A–Z,0–9,$	No directory hierarchy (flat file system)	33,554,432bytes (65536 × 512)	33,554,432bytes	?
SquashFS	256 bytes	?	No limit defined	16 EiB (18.44 EB)	16 EiB (18.44 EB)	?
UDF	255 bytes	AnyUnicode except NUL	1,023 bytes^[dh]	16 EiB (18.44 EB)	512 MiB (536.8 MB) to 16 TiB (17.59 TB)	?
UFS1	255 bytes	Any byte except/ andNUL^[ch]	No limit defined^[ci]	16 GiB (17.17 GB) to 256 TiB (281.4 TB)	16 EiB (18.44 EB)	Subdirectory per directory is 32,767^[129]
UFS2	255 bytes	Any byte except/ andNUL^[ch]	No limit defined^[ci]	512 GiB (549.7 GB) to 32 PiB (36.02 PB)	512 ZiB (604.4 ZB)^[130] (2⁷⁹bytes)	Subdirectory per directory is 32,767^[129]
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
VaultFS	configurable (1024 default)	Any byte exceptNUL	No limit defined	No limit defined	No limit defined	No limit defined
Version 6 Unix file system (V6FS)	14 bytes	Any byte except/ andNUL^[ch]	No limit defined^[ci]	16 MiB (16.77 MB)^[di]	32 MiB (33.55 MB)	?
Version 7 Unix file system (V7FS)	14 bytes	Any byte except/ andNUL^[ch]	No limit defined^[ci]	1 GiB (1.073 GB)^[dj]	2 TiB (2.199 TB)	?
VMFS2	128	Any byte except NUL or/^[ch]	2,048	4 TiB (4.398 TB)^[dk]	64 TiB (70.36 TB)	?
VMFS3	128	Any byte except NUL or/^[ch]	2,048	2 TiB (2.199 TB)^[dk]	64 TiB (70.36 TB)	?
VxFS	255 bytes	Any byte except/ andNUL^[ch]	No limit defined^[ci]	16 EiB (18.44 EB)	?	?
XFS	255 bytes^[dl]	Any byte except/ andNUL^[ch]	No limit defined^[ci]	8 EiB (9.223 EB)^[dm]	8 EiB (9.223 EB)^[dm]	2⁶⁴
Xiafs	248 bytes	Any byte except NUL^[ch]	No limit defined^[ci]	64 MiB (67.10 MB)	2 GiB (2.147 GB)	?
ZFS	1023 bytes	Any byte except/ andNUL^[ch]	No limit defined^[ci]	16 EiB (18.44 EB)	268,435,456 QiB (2¹²⁸ bytes)	2¹²⁸
File system	Maximum filename length	Allowable characters in directory entries^[cf]	Maximum pathname length	Maximum file size	Maximum volume size^[cg]	Max number of files

Date ranges and time granularity
File system	Start date (time)	End date (time)	Granularity (last modified time)
APFS	1970-01-01 00:00:00	2554-07-21 23:34:33	0.000000001 seconds (1 nanosecond)
Btrfs	1970-01-01 - ~292 billion years	1970-01-01 + ~292 billion years	0.000000001 seconds (1 nanosecond)
exFAT^[dn]	1980-01-01 00:00:00	2107-12-31 23:59:59	0.01 seconds (10 milliseconds)
ext2, ext3	1901-12-14 20:45:52	2038-01-19 03:14:07	1 second
ext4	1901-12-14 20:45:52	2446-05-10 22:38:55	0.000000001 seconds (1 nanosecond)
FAT12, FAT16, FAT32^[do]	1980-01-01 00:00:00	2107-12-31 23:59:58	2 seconds
ISO 9660^[133]	0001-01-01	9999-12-31^[dp]	0.01 seconds (10 milliseconds)
JFS	Unknown	Unknown	0.000000001 seconds (1 nanosecond)
MFS, HFS, HFS Plus	1904-01-01 00:00:00	2040-02-06 06:28:15	1 second
NTFS	1601-01-01	60056-05-28	0.0000001 seconds (100 nanoseconds)
ReiserFS	1901-12-14 20:45:52	2038-01-19	1 second
tux3	Unknown	Unknown	0.00390625 seconds (1/256th of a second)
UDF	0001-01-01	9999-12-31	0.000001 seconds (1 microsecond)
UFS1	1901-12-14 20:45:52	2038-01-19 03:14:07	Originally one second; 0.000000001 seconds (1 nanosecond) in 4.4BSD and 4.4BSD-derived systems.
UFS2	1970-01-01 - ~292 billion years	1970-01-01 + ~292 billion years	0.000000001 seconds (1 nanosecond)
XFS	1901-12-13	2486-07-02	0.000000001 seconds (1 nanosecond)

Notes

[edit]

^IBM introduced JFS with the initial release ofAIX Version 3.1 in 1990. This file system now called JFS1. The new JFS, on which the Linux port was based, was first shipped inOS/2 Warp Server for e-Business in 1999. The same sourcebase was also used for release JFS2 on AIX 5L.
^^a ^b ^cMicrosoft first introduced FAT32 inMS-DOS 7.1 /Windows 95 OSR2 (OEM Service Release 2) and then later inWindows 98. NT-based Windows did not haveany 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.
^ParticularInstallable File System drivers andoperating 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.
^Thef-node contains a field for a user identifier. This is not used except byOS/2 Warp Server, however.
^NTFSaccess 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 asServices for UNIX orCygwin.
^As of Vista, NTFS has support for Mandatory Labels, which are used to enforceMandatory Integrity Control.^[12]
^Initially, ReFS lacked support for ADS, but Server 2012 R2 and up add support for ADS on ReFS
^^a ^b ^c ^dAccess-control lists and MAC labels are layered on top of extended attributes.
^Some operating systems implemented extended attributes as a layer overUFS1 with a parallel backing file (e.g., FreeBSD 4.x).
^^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k ^l ^m ⁿSomeInstallable File System drivers andoperating 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 apatch.
^ 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 ^fThe 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 ^bNovell 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 ^bSome 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 inNDS/eDirectory, like file/object permissions, ownership, etc.
^^a ^b ^cRecord Management Services (RMS) attributes include record type and size, among many others.
^File permission in9P 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 ^blibburnia can back up and restore extended attributes and MAC labels with file system creation and extraction programs, but no kernel support exists.
^There are two variants of APFS, one that is case-sensitive, and one that is not. The non-case-sensitive variant is the default one for APFS in macOS 10.13+, while the case-sensitive variant is the default one for iOS 10.3+.
^System V Release 4, and some otherUnix systems, retrofitted symbolic links to their versions of theVersion 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.^[18] NTFS 3.0 (Windows 2000) and higher can createjunctions, 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 throughreparse points, which allow the normal process of filename resolution to be extended in a flexible manner.
^^a ^bNTFS stores everything, even the file data, as meta-data, so its log is closer to block journaling.
^^a ^bWhile 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 commandnewfs_hfs -s will create a case-sensitive new file system.^[20] 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.^[21]^[22]
^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).^[23]
^"Soft dependencies" (softdep) inNetBSD, called "soft updates" inFreeBSD 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^[25]^[26]
^^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^fUDF, LFS, and NILFS arelog-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 ^dOff by default.
^Full block journaling for ReiserFS was added to Linux 2.6.8.
^Optionally no on IRIX and Linux.
^ParticularInstallable File System drivers andoperating 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 ^dCase-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 ^bThe 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.^[28]
^^a ^bAvailable only in the "NFS" namespace.
^^a ^bThese are referred to as "aliases".
^^a ^bZFS 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 ^bA 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 ^bonly inside ofStacker 3/4 andDriveSpace 3 compressed volumes^[31]
^Supported only on Windows Server SKUs. However, partitions deduplicated on Server can be used on Client.
^HFS+ does not actually encrypt files: to implementFileVault, 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 thecryptcompress 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 allOpenZFS ports.^[38]^[39]^[40]
^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.^[41]
^ 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: -15 to 15, default is 3 (higher levels are not available and may not bring a significant improvement, lower levels are close to real time)^[42]
^ none
CRC-32C (default)
crc64
xxHash (64-bit)
chacha20/poly1305 (When encryption is enabled. Encryption can only be specified for the entire filesystem, not per file or directory)^[43]
^ none (default)
The three currently supported algorithms aregzip,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.^[44]
^ Work in progress^[45]
^*3.7: Added file-level snapshot (only available inWindows Server 2022).^[46]
^^a ^bBy 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.^[47]
^*3.9: Added post process compression withLZ4 andZSTD and transparent decompression.
^^a ^b ^cSome 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 ^dWith software based onGNU Parted.
^^a ^bVariable block size refers to systems which support different block sizes on a per-file basis. This is similar toextents but a slightly different implementational choice.
^Only for "stuffed" inodes
^^a ^b ^c ^dOther block:fragment size ratios supported; 8:1 is typical and recommended by most implementations.
^^a ^b ^cFragments were planned, but never actually implemented on ext2 and ext3.
^ Stores one largest extent in disk, and caches multiple extents in DRAM dynamically.
^^a ^bTail packing is technically a special case of block suballocation where the suballocation unit size is always 1 byte.
^In "extents" mode.
^ _inline_all field in jfs_dinode.h
^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.
^Effectively, implemented as inline data support for any small extent.
^Effectively, implemented as many inline data extents packed in a single metadata node.
^Supported using only EVMS; not currently supported using LVM
^^a ^b ^c ^dProvided inPlan 9 from User Space
^^a ^bFUSE 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 ^eThese are the restrictions imposed by the on-disk directory entry structures themselves, as well as those imposed byoperating systems across all file systems. ParticularInstallable File System drivers may place restrictions of their own on file and directory names.
DOS,Windows, andOS/2 allow only the following characters from the current 8-bitOEM 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, allUnicode characters 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 file systems.
^^a ^b ^c ^d ^eFor 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 someInstallable File System drivers andoperating 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 ^am ^an ^ao ^ap ^aq ^ar ^asIn 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 ^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 ^am ^an ^aoThe on-disk structures have no inherent limit. ParticularInstallable File System drivers andoperating systems may impose limits of their own, however. Limited by its Current Directory Structure (CDS),DOS does not support more than 32 directory levels (except forDR DOS 3.31-6.0) or full pathnames longer than 66 bytes for FAT, or 255 characters for LFNs. Windows NT does not support full pathnames longer than 32,767 bytes for NTFS. Older POSIX APIs which rely on thePATH_MAX constant have a limit of 4,096 bytes on Linux but this can be worked around. Linux itself has no hard path length limits.^[131]^[132]
^File size can be greater than total available space due to compression, extent sharing and holes in sparse files.
^255 member devices each limited to 8PiB.
^Only 2³¹-4096 files/directories withinodes_32bit option in effect.
^Varies wildly according to block size and fragmentation of block allocation groups.
^^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^fDepends on whether theFAT12,FAT16, andFAT32implementation has support forLFNs. Where it does not, as inOS/2,DOS,Windows 95,Windows 98 in DOS-only mode and the Linux "msdos" driver, file names are limited to8.3 format of 8-bitOEM characters (space padded in both the basename and extension parts) and may not contain NUL (end-of-directory marker) or character 5 (replacement for character 229 which itself is used as deleted-file marker). Short names also must not contain lowercase letters. A few specialdevice names (CON,NUL,AUX,PRN,LPT1,COM1, etc.) should be avoided, as some operating systems (notably DOS, OS/2 and Windows) reserve them.
^^a ^bOn-disk structures would support up to 4 GiB (4.294 GB), but practical file size is limited by volume size.
^While FAT32partitions this large work fine once created, some software won't allow creation of FAT32 partitions larger than 32 GiB (34.35 GB). This includes, notoriously, theWindows XP installation program and the Disk Management console in Windows 2000, XP, 2003 and Vista. UseFDISK from aWindows ME Emergency Boot Disk to avoid.^[113]
^^a ^bMaximum pathname length is 4,096 bytes, but quoted limits on individual components add up to 1,664 bytes.
^Maximum combined filename/filetype length is 236 bytes; each component has an individual maximum length of 255 bytes.
^^a ^bDepends on CPU arch. For 32bit kernels the max is 16 TiB (17.59 TB).^[115]
^^a ^bDepends on kernel version and arch. For 2.4 kernels the max is 2 TiB (2.199 TB). For 32-bit 2.6 kernels it is 16 TiB (17.59 TB). For 64-bit 2.6 kernels it is 8 EiB (9.223 EB).
^The "classic" Mac OS provides two sets of functions to retrieve file names from an HFS Plus volume, one of them returning the full Unicode names, the other shortened names fitting in the older 31 byte limit to accommodate older applications.
^HFS Plus mandates support for anescape sequence to allow arbitrary Unicode. Users of older software might see the escape sequences instead of the desired characters.
^The "." and ".." directory entries in HPFS that are seen by applications programs are a partial fiction created by theInstallable File System drivers. The on-disk data structure for a directory does not contain entries by those names, but instead contains a special "start" entry. Whilst on-disk directory entries by those names are not physically prohibited, they cannot be created in normal operation, and a directory containing such entries is corrupt.
^This is the limit of the on-disk structures. The HPFSInstallable File System driver forOS/2 uses the top 5 bits of the volume sector number for its own use, limiting the volume size that it can handle to 64 GiB (68.71 GB).
^ISO 9660#Restrictions
^Through the use of multi-extents, a file can consist of multiple segments, each up to 4 GiB (4.294 GB) in size. SeeISO 9660#The 2 GiB (2.147 GB) (or 4 GiB (4.294 GB) depending on implementation) file size limit
^Assuming the typical 2048 Byte sector size. The volume size is specified as a 32 bit value identifying the number of sectors on the volume.
^^a ^bSparse files can be larger than the file system size, even though they can't contain more data.
^^a ^bNSS allows files to have multiple names, in separate namespaces.
^^a ^bThis is the limit of the on-disk structures. The NTFS driver forWindows NT limits the volume size that it can handle to 256 TiB (281.4 TB) and the file size to 16 TiB (17.59 TB) respectively; in Windows 10 version 1709, the limit is 8 PiB (9.007 PB) when using 2 MiB (2.097 MB) cluster size.
^Some namespaces had lower name length limits. "LONG" had an 80-byte limit, "NWFS" 80 bytes, "NFS" 40 bytes and "DOS" imposed8.3 filename.
^^a ^bQFS allows files to exceed the size of disk when used with its integrated HSM, as only part of the file need reside on disk at any one time.
^ReiserFS has a theoretical maximum file size of 1 EiB (1.152 EB), but "page cache limits this to 8 Ti on architectures with 32 bit int"^[128]
^This restriction might be lifted in newer versions.
^The file size in the inode is 1 8-bit byte followed by 1 16-bit word, for 24 bits. The actual maximum was 8,847,360 bytes, with 7 singly-indirect blocks and 1 doubly-indirect block; PWB/UNIX 1.0's variant had 8 singly-indirect blocks, making the maximum 524,288 bytes or half aMB.
^The actual maximum was 1,082,201,088 bytes, with 10 direct blocks, 1 singly-indirect block, 1 doubly-indirect block, and 1 triply-indirect block. The 4.0BSD and 4.1BSD versions, and theSystem V version, used 1,024-byte blocks rather than 512-byte blocks, making the maximum 4,311,812,608 bytes or approximately 4 GiB (4.294 GB).
^^a ^bMaximum file size on a VMFS volume depends on the block size for that VMFS volume. The figures here are obtained by using the maximum block size.
^Note that the filename can be much longerXFS#Extended attributes
^^a ^bXFS has a limitation under Linux 2.4 of 64 TiB (70.36 TB) file size, but Linux 2.4 only supports a maximum block size of 2 TiB (2.199 TB). This limitation is not present underIRIX.
^exFAT records 10-millisecond increments for last modification and creation time stamps, but only one second for the last access time stamp.exFAT file system specification
^FAT has different granularities for different time stamps. Only the date of last access is recorded, not the time. The file creation time (treated as "change time" by Linux for this specific file system) is recorded more granularly, at a hundredth of a second.FAT: General Overview of On-Disk Format, page 23.
^Software that doesn't recognize Extended Attribute Records in ISO 9660 will only recognize a date range from 1900 to 2155, see section 9.1.5 Recording Date and Time in the source.