Basic Definition

FAT stands for File Allocation Table and FAT32 is an extension which means that data is
stored in chunks of 32 bits. These is an older type of file system that isn’t commonly used these
days.

NTFS stands for New Technology File System and this took over from FAT as the primary file
system being used in Windows.

Indeed, before making a choice you need to know about their capabilities. The table below will
give you a rough idea of the features and respective support.

Description of Features

Few of the things here are self explanatory. So, I will expand those which require little
description.

Fault Tolerance: NTFS maintains a log of disk changes and in case of power failure or abrupt
errors it repairs the files and folders automatically without the user being notified anything.
FAT32 maintains two different copies of the file allocation table and uses a back up mechanism
if some damage occurs.
Security: In FAT32 you will have to depend on share permissions for security. This means that
they are good in the Network but locally they are vulnerable. On the other hand NTFS allows
you to set permissions on local files and folders as well.

Compression: FAT32 offers no compression feature whatsoever. While NTFS lets you
compress files and folders individually so that you do not have to slow down the system by
depending on partition compressions.

Conversion: You may easily convert a FAT32 system to NTFS. But the reverse is not true
because NTFS follows a secure protocol. So, the only option here is to backup your data and
format the disk.

FAT32

Why Do Removable Drives Still Use FAT32 Instead of NTFS?

FAT32 is the oldest file system here. It was introduced all the way back in Windows 95 to
replace the older FAT16 file system.

This file system’s age has advantages and disadvantages. Because it’s so old, it’s the de-facto
standard. Flash drives you purchase will often come formatted with FAT32 for maximum
compatibility across not just modern computers, but other devices like game consoles and
anything with a USB port.

Limitations come with that age, however. Individual files on a FAT32 drive can’t be over 4 GB
in size — that’s the maximum. A FAT32 partition must also be less than 8 TB, which is less of a
limitations — but still a noticeable one if you have a new, high-capacity mechanical drive.

While this file system is okay for USB flash drives and other external media, you won’t want to
use this for an internal drive. It lacks the permissions and other security features built into the
more modern NTFS file system. Modern versions of Windows can no longer be installed to
FAT32, and must be installed onto drives formatted with NTFS.

Compatibility: Works with all versions of Windows, Mac, Linux, game consoles, and
practically anything with a USB port.

Limits: 4 GB maximum file size, 8 TB maximum partition size.

Ideal Use: Use it on removable drives for maximum compatibility with the widest range of
devices, assuming you don’t have any files 4 GB or larger in size.

NTFS
NTFS is the modern file system Windows likes to use. When you install Windows, it formats
your system drive with the NTFS file system. NTFS has file size and partition size limits that are
so theoretically huge you won’t run up against them. NTFS first appeared in consumer versions
of Windows with Windows XP.

Aside from these limitations, NTFS is packed with other modern features. It supports file
permissions for security, a change journal that can help quickly recover errors if your computer
crashes, shadow copies for backups, encryption, disk quota limits, hard links, and other various
features. Many of these are crucial for an operating system drive — especially file permissions.

Your Windows system partition must be NTFS. If you have a secondary drive alongside
Windows and you plan on installing programs to it, you should probably go ahead and make it
NTFS, too.

However, NTFS just isn’t as compatible with other operating systems. It’ll work with all recent
versions of Windows — all the way back to Windows XP — but it has limited compatibility
with other operating systems. By default, Mac OS X can only read NTFS drives, not write to
them. Some Linux distributions may enable NTFS-writing support, but some may be read-only.
None of Sony’s PlayStation consoles support NTFS. Even Microsoft’s own Xbox 360 can’t
read NTFS drives, although the new Xbox One can. Other devices are even less likely to support
NTFS.

Compatibility: Works with all versions of Windows, but read-only with Mac by default, and
may be read-only by default with some Linux distributions. Other devices — with the exception
of Microsoft’s Xbox One — probably won’t support NTFS.

Limits: No realistic file-size or partition size limits.

Ideal Use: Use it for your Windows system drive and other internal drives that will just be used
with Windows.

Origins of FAT and NTFS

FAT (File Allocation Table) was created by Bill Gates and Marc McDonald in the year 1977. It
has undergone many changes since then. The number "32" in FAT32 denotes the number of bits
needed to keep track of the files. FAT16 was popular until the arrival of 4GB hard disks. NTFS
was born from HPFS file system in collaboration of Microsoft and IBM. NTFS appeared initially
for Windows NT platform. Since then it has developed and appears in recent versions of
Windows like Vista, XP. Microsoft continues to hold on to NTFS patent.

Features of NTFS vs FAT

FAT32 is a fluff-free and simple system that is documented and mainly keeps track of file
locations. The simplicity of FAT32 has made it the file system of choice for portable storage
mediums like in memory cards, mp3 players and flash players. NTFS file system is more
complex and offers multiple enhancements that increase security as well as performance. NTFS
file system allows automatic file compression prior to being written freeing up hard disk space
and also has disk quotas which allows system administrator to allocate disk space to users.

FAT32 is a derivative of the (FAT) File Allocation Table which supports drives with more than
2GB storage. The largest possible file is 4GB minus 2 bytes. In comparison to its earlier
versions, FAT32 uses small clusters and hence uses space more effectively. It can relocate the
root folder and use the backup copy of the FAT instead of the default copy. NTFS is much more
flexible than FAT32. NTFS does file-level encryption, sparse file support, disk usage quotas,
distributed link tracing, file compression, hierarchical storage management etc.

Advantages and Disadvantages

FAT32 can be converted to NTFS but it is not so easy to convert NTFS back to FAT. NTFS has
great security, file by file compression, quotas and file encryption. If there is more than one
operating system on a single computer, it is better to format some volumes as FAT32.

Using multiple operating systems in same computer would m

Disk quota management

Alternatively referred to as a quota, disk quota management are permissions given by
administrators that set limits on the user, workgroups, or other groups of storage space. By
setting a quota, this helps prevents a server or share from becoming full of data, but still allows
users to save files.

Most users who send and receive e-mail or run their own web page may be familiar with quotas
because of over quota messages, which is an indication they exceed their available space. Also,
if an e-mail file attachment is too big to fit into the available quota you'll receive a similar error.

About Disk Quotas

Unfortunately, in Windows NT Disk Quotas didn’t exist, which was much to the disappointment
of Windows Administrators. Along came Windows 2000 and with the introduction of Disk
Quotas it meant Administrators had the ability to track and control user disk usage. The only
problem was that they didn’t really have a sufficient way of managing disk quotas. Scripting,
reporting and remote usage methods were somewhat limited and ambiguous. Windows 2003
offers better all round functionality and easier enterprise-wide disk quota manageability.

Disk quotas are used in conjunction with NTFS, Group Policy and Active Directory technology.
NTFS is the file system on which disk quotas can be set, Group Policy is what is used to set disk
quotas on a specific set of users and computers, and Active Directory is used to gather a list of
users to which the disk quota group policy will be set. It is important to note that disk quotas can
only be used with NTFS; setting them up on FAT or FAT32 drives is not possible.
Disk quotas are configured on a per volume basis and cannot be set on a file or folder level. Each
volume would have its individual settings which do not affect any other volumes. You may have
a single disk partitioned into two volumes (drives C and D for example) with each having their
own quota settings. Disk quotas can also be configured on a per user basis and different groups
of users can have different limits set. Administrators are the only ones to whom a disk quota does
not apply; by default there are no limits for an Administrator.

There are numerous reasons you may wish to make use of disk quotas. Based on the
requirements of your organization you might choose to configure disk quotas if you have a
restricted amount of disk space on a specific server, a limited number of servers, or perhaps the
need to monitor user disk space usage without actually enforcing a quota. You might be
wondering why you’d want to just monitor user disk space usage. Well, let’s say you have a
fileserver set up with multiple users in your organization using it everyday to store temporary
files. As time goes by and perhaps people forget to delete the files from the server, the amount of
available disk space will continue to decrease. If nothing is done about it then users will be
denied the right to add more files on the server (until some old files are removed). By monitoring
user disk space usage with Microsoft’s disk quotas, you can be notified of when space is running
out and then increase the allocated space on the server accordingly or notify your users that they
need to delete their files from the server. Additionally, setting a quota warning level will allow
for a system event log to be written for your review.

Implementing Windows Server 2008 File System Quotas

Disk quotas have been available in Windows since Windows 2000 was released, and could be
used by administrators to limit the amount of space users could use on an NTFS volume. Disk
quotas are based on file ownership rather than folder structure and because of this they are not
particularly useful in all situations. For example, if your server had a single storage volume and
you need to apply quotas to different folders on the volume then disk quotas will not help.

File system quotas, which were first introduced in Windows Server 2003 R2, and are a part of
the File Server role in Windows Server 2008 (and Windows Server 2008 R2), offer many
benefits over disk quotas. With file system quotas we can set quotas for specific folders on the
volume, we can use templates to ensure consistent application of quotas, and we can set quotas
which are automatically applied to all sub-folders of a folder.

Additionally, file system quotas are useful not just for limiting the amount of space users can
consume, but also for reporting on space used – quotas can be set with so-called “soft” limits
which are used for monitoring rather than enforcing limits. This functionality can be extremely
useful for quickly determining which users or folders are consuming large amounts of disk space
on a file server.

Quota thresholds can be configured so that users or administrators receive notifications when
quotas have been reached or are about to be reached. Multiple thresholds can be configured for
individual quotas, and actions can include sending e-mail messages, logging to the Windows
event log, running commands or scripts, or generating storage reports.
In Windows Server 2008 file system quotas are managed with the File Server Resource Manager
(FSRM) console (which is installed as a role service in the File Services role), the command line
utility dirquota, or with Windows PowerShell using a COM API.

Figure 1: Windows Server 2008 File Server Resource Manager

There are two kinds of quota available – hard quotas which set a limit and enforce it, and soft
quotas which set a limit but only report on it. Soft quotas are useful for monitoring disk space
use. Quotas are commonly applied using quota templates, which are a mechanism for easily
applying the same quota settings to one or more folders. Quota Templates are the recommended
way to configure quotas and FSRM includes some example templates which cover a range of
scenarios, including using both hard and soft quota types.

Before we start to configure quotas which will generate e-mail messages, the quota File Server
Resource Manager needs to be configured with an SMTP server, and optionally, the default
administrator recipients, and the default “from” address.

Like all aspects of quota management, the FSRM settings can be applied using three different
tools and you can choose the method appropriate to your needs.

To configure FSRM using the FSRM console:

 1. Launch the File Server Resource Manager
2. Select the root node, labelled “File Server Resource Manager”
3. In the Action Pane click “Configure Options…”
4. Enter an SMTP server and if desired configure the other settings

5. Click the “OK” button

To configure FSRM using the command line:

1. Open an elevated command prompt window

2. Enter the command “dirquota admin options /From:[email protected]
/AdminEmails:[email protected] /SMTP:smtp.example.com”
 To configure FSRM using Windows PowerShell:

1. Open Windows PowerShell

2. Enter these commands (or save them as a script and run it):

# Create a new COM object to access the FSRM settings

$fsrm = New-Object -com Fsrm.FsrmSetting

# Set the default administrators e-mail address

$fsrm.AdminEmail = "[email protected]"

# Set the from address

$fsrm.MailFrom = "[email protected]"

# Set the SMTP server

$fsrm.SmtpServer = "smtp.example.com"
Quota Example – Home directories with a 5GB limit

A common use of file system quotas is to put limits on the size of user’s personal storage space
(folders which are often referred to as home directories) on a file server. The requirements of
this scenario are to limit the space each user can use to 5GB, alert administrators when 90% of
the quota has been reached, and automatically apply quotas to new home directories. The
solution requires the implementation of new quota template and an auto apply quota.

Step 1: Create the new quota template

The first step is to create a new template, which we will use later to apply the quota to the file
system. Using a template means we can easily make changes to all folders where we have
applied the template quota settings. The template can be created using the FSRM, the dirquota
command line tool, or PowerShell, meaning you can choose the tool with which you feel
comfortable with and that fits most of your scenarios.

To create the new quota template using the FSRM:

1. Launch the File Server Resource Manager

2. Expand “Quota Management” -> “Quota Templates”
3. In the Action Pane click “Create Quota Template”
4. Enter the template name and set the space limit
 Note: To set a soft quota (for monitoring only) check the “Soft Quota” radio button

5. Click the “Add” button to add a notification threshold

6. Set the notification percentage to 90, check the “Send e-mail to the following administrators”,
and enter an appropriate destination e-mail address. You can also customise the message text.
 7. Click the “OK” button twice

To create the new quota template using the dirquota command line utility:

1. Open an elevated command prompt (or Windows PowerShell) window

2. Create a text file called notification.txt containing the text of the notification message (an
example of this text message can be downloaded from this article)
3. Enter this command:

dirquota Template Add /Template:"Default Home Directory (5GB Limit)" /Limit:5GB /Type:Hard /Add-
Threshold:90 /Add-Notification:90,M,notification.txt
 Note: To set a soft quota (for monitoring only) change “/Type:Hard” to “/Type:Hard”

To create the new quota using Windows PowerShell:

1. Open Windows PowerShell

2. Enter these commands (or save them as a script and run it):

# Create a new COM object to access quota templates

$fqtm = New-Object -com Fsrm.FsrmQuotaTemplateManager

# Create a new template object

$template = $fqtm.CreateTemplate()

# Set the template's name

$template.Name = "Default Home Directory (5GB Limit)"

# Set the quota limit

$template.QuotaLimit = 5GB

# Set the quota type to hard limit (the flag for a hard limit is 0x100)
$template.QuotaFlags = $template.QuotaFlags -bor 0x100

# Add a quota threshold

$template.AddThreshold(90)

# Add a threshold e-mail action

$action = $template.CreateThresholdAction(90, 2)

# Set the e-mail message recipient

$action.MailTo = "[Admin Email]"

# Set the e-mail message subject

$action.MailSubject = "[Quota Threshold]% quota threshold exceeded"

# Set the e-mail message text

$action.MessageText = "User [Source Io Owner] has exceeded the [Quota Threshold]% " + `

"quota threshold for the quota on [Quota Path] on server [Server]. The quota limit " + `

"is [Quota Limit MB] MB, and " + ` "[Quota Used MB] MB currently is in use ([Quota " + `

"Used Percent]% of limit)."

Note: To set a soft quota (for monitoring only) change “$template.QuotaFlags =

$template.QuotaFlags -bor 0x100” to “$template.QuotaFlags = $template.QuotaFlags -bxor
0x100” to disable the hard limit flag.
Step 2: Create the Quota

The next step is to use the new quota template to apply the quota to the file system.

In this example we’ll say that the home directories are all subfolders of C:\Home. Because we
want any new home folders to automatically have the quota applied we need to create an Auto
apply Quota. Auto apply quotas are applied to all existing subfolders and any future folders.

To create the quota using the FSRM:

1. Launch the File Server Resource Manager

2. Expand “Quota Management” -> “Quotas”
3. In the Action Pane click “Create Quota”
4. Enter the quota path and choose the appropriate template
 5. Click the “Create” button

To create the quota using the dirquota command line tool:

1. Open an elevated command prompt window

2. Create a text file called notification.txt containing the text of the notification message (an
example of this text message can be downloaded from this article)
3. Enter the command “dirquota autoquota add /Path:C:\Home /SourceTemplate:”Default Home
Directory (5GB Limit)””
 To create the quota using Windows PowerShell:

1. Open Windows PowerShell

2. Enter these commands (or save them as a script and run it):

# Create a new COM object to access quotas

$fqtm = New-Object -com Fsrm.FsrmQuotaManager

# Create the new quota

$quota = $fqtm.CreateAutoApplyQuota("Default Home Directory (5GB Limit)", "C:\Home")

# Save the new quota

$quota.Commit()
Quota Exceptions / Folder-Specific Quotas

Naturally there will be occasions when a folder needs to be excluded from a template or auto
apply quota. In these situations you can easily add a specific quota for that folder to either
increase the limit or to disable the quota entirely.

To create the quota exception using the FSRM:

1. Launch the File Server Resource Manager

2. Expand “Quota Management” -> “Quotas”
3. Select the folder you wish to make the exception for
4. In the Action Pane click “Edit Quota Properties…”
5. Enter new limit for the quota
 6. Click “OK”

Note: Check the “Disable quota” box to disable the quota

To create the quota exception using the dirquota command line tool:

1. Open an elevated command prompt window

2. Enter the command …
“dirquota quota add /Path:C:\Home\John_Smith /SourceTemplate:”Default Home Directory
(5GB Limit)” /Limit:10GB /Overwrite”
 Note: To disable the quota append the command with “/status:disabled”.

To create the quota exception using Windows PowerShell:

1. Open Windows PowerShell

2. Enter these commands (or save them as a script and run it):

# Create a new COM object to access quotas

$fqtm = New-Object -com Fsrm.FsrmQuotaManager

# Get the existing quota

$quota = $fqtm.GetQuota("C:\Home\John_Smith")

# Set the new quota limit

$quota.QuotaLimit = 10GB

# Save the quota

$quota.Commit()
Note: To disable the quota, insert the line “$quota.QuotaFlags = $quota.QuotaFlags -bor 0x200”
before saving the quota

How Quotas Affect Clients

When a client maps a network drive to a folder which has a hard quota applied the size of the
volume and the amount of available disk space shown is equal to the quota settings.
Figure: Mapped drive showing hard quota limit as volume size

When a hard quota is met or exceeded clients will receive a message telling them that the volume
is out of disk space.
Figure: Insufficient disk space message

Viewing Quotas

Administrators can view hard and soft quotas using FSRM, and viewing quotas this way can be a
quick method for finding large folders or large consumers of space.
Figure: Quotas in File Server Resource Manager

File system quotas are quick and easy to set up, with three different and flexible methods
available for configuring them. Properly applied they can be a good tool to help ensure efficient
use of storage resources, a convenient countermeasure against storage waste, and a useful tool
for reporting on storage utilisation. There is an IO performance penalty for using quotas, but the
benefits will probably outweigh the small performance cost.