Scribd
Upload
59 views2 pages

Master File Table

Uploaded by

ebilan
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
59 views2 pages

Master File Table

Uploaded by

ebilan
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 2

Master File Table (MFT)

Probably the most important of the key system (metadata) files that define an
NTFS volume, the Master File Table or MFT is the place where information about
every file and directory on an NTFS volume is stored. The MFT is in essence a
relational database table, containing various attributes about different files. It acts
as the "starting point" and central management feature of an NTFS volume--sort of
a "table of contents" for the volume, if you will. It is somewhat analog to the file
allocation table in a FAT partition, but is much more than just a list of used and
available clusters.

When any file or directory is created on the NTFS volume, a record is created for it
within the MFT. The size of each record in the MFT seems to be a matter of some
controversy; the best that I can tell is that each record is equal to the cluster size of
the volume, but with a minimum of 1,024 bytes and a maximum of 4,096.
(Meaning that even if 512 byte clusters are used, each MFT record is still 1,024
bytes, and even if clusters greater than 4,096 bytes are used, each MFT record is
limited to 4,096 bytes.) However, some sources say that the size of each MFT
record is fixed at either 1,024 or 2,048 bytes.

The system uses these MFT records to store information about the file or directory;
this information takes the form of attributes. Since the size of each MFT record is
limited, there are different ways that NTFS can store a file's attributes: as
either resident attributes that are stored within the MFT record, or non-
resident attributes, stored either in additional MFT records or in extents that lie
outside the MFT. See the discussion of file attributes for more details.

Remember that under NTFS, there is no special distinction between the data in a
file and the attributes that describe the file--the data itself is just the contents of the
"data attribute". This has an interesting implication for small files. If the amount of
space required for all of the attributes of a file, including the data it contains, is
smaller than the size of the MFT record, the data attribute will be stored resident--
within the MFT record itself. Thus, such files require no additional storage space
on the volume, and also do not require separate accesses to the disk to check the
MFT and then read the file, which improves performance.

Larger files get more complicated. As additional attributes are added to a file--
either standard attributes defined by the system or new ones created by the user--
and as the existing attributes are expanded in size, they may no longer fit into the
MFT record for the file. If this occurs, the attributes will be moved out of the MFT
and be made non-resident by the file system. Large files will have their data stored
as external attributes, and very large files may even get so large that the attributes
containing pointers to the file data become external attributes themselves! I discuss
this nested structuring of files on the page describing NTFS files and data storage.
As more files and directories are added to the file system, it becomes necessary for
NTFS to add more records to the MFT. Since keeping the MFT contiguous on the
disk improves performance, when an NTFS volume is first set up, the operating
system reserves about 12.5% of the disk space immediately following the MFT;
this is sometimes called the "MFT Zone". This is a substantial chunk of real estate
to reserve, but bear in mind that it is still usable. Regular files and directories will
not use this space until and unless the rest of the disk volume space is consumed,
but if that occurs, the "MFT Zone" will be used. Eventually, if there are enough
entries placed in the MFT, as it expands it will use up the "MFT Zone". When this
happens, the operating system will automatically allocate more space elsewhere on
the disk for the MFT. This allows the MFT to grow to a size limited only by the
size of the volume, but this fragmentation of the MFT may reduce performance by
increasing the number of reads required for some files, and the MFT cannot
generally be defragmented.

Note: The first sixteen records in the MFT are always reserved for the
volume's metadata files.

You might also like