Managing Windows XP File Systems and Storage

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Managing Windows XP File Systems and Storage

• Chapter Four

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File Storage Basics

• Windows XP supports
• Basic storage
• Familiar to most DOS and Windows NT users
• Centered around partitioning a physical disk
• Requires system reboot when changed
• Dynamic storage
• New method supported only by Windows XP/2000
• Centered on volumes
• Can be expanded without rebooting

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Basic Storage

• Industry standard method of dividing a hard drive
  into partitions
• Primary partition
• Can be marked active
• Up to 4 can exist on a physical disk
• Extended partition
• Can be divided into logical drives
• Only a single one can exist on a physical disk,
  and when present, only 3 primary partitions can
  exist

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Basic Storage

• Basic storage volume
• A collection of 2-32 partitions into a single
  logical structure
• Volume set
• A collection of disk partitions that are treated
  as a logical drive

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Basic Storage

• Create partitions or volumes as large as the
  operating system and file system will allow
• FAT 4 GB
• FAT32 32 GB
• NTFS 2 TB

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Basic Storage

• Supports a wide range of disk configurations from
  single formatted partitions (drives/logical
  drives) to RAID 5 volumes on Windows NT and
  hardware RAID
• Requires a system reboot when changed

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Basic Storage

• Windows XP can only be installed onto basic
  storage type partitions
• It can later be converted to dynamic storage.
• System partition
• Active partition where the boot files required to
  display the boot menu and initiate the booting of
  Windows XP are stored
• Boot partition
• Hosts the main Windows XP system files
• Initial default location for the paging file

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Dynamic Storage

• New type of storage technique that does not use
  partitions
• Views an entire physical hard drive as a single
  entity, labeled as a volume
• Offers drive structures from simple volumes to
  fully fault tolerant RAID 5 configurations
  (server only)
• Can be expanded without rebooting
• Accessible only to Windows XP/2000

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Dynamic Storage

• RAID 1 is the only fault tolerant volumes for the
  OS system files (server only)
• RAID 5 can be used for data and applications, but
  not for the system partition (server only)

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Dynamic Storage

• Use selection wizard (launched when Disk
  Management tool is accessed) to transform new
  drives into dynamic storage hosts
• Once you have a dynamic storage host, create a
  volume
• Computer Management
• Disk Management

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Transforming a New Drive into a Dynamic Storage
Host
Right-Click on Disk 0 and Choose option to
convert to Dynamic
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Dynamic Drives
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Creating a Volume
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Creating a Mounted Volume
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Basic and Dynamic Disk Comparison
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Removable Storage Devices

• Any type of floppy, cartridge, or drive that can
  be either removed between reboots or as a hot
  swappable device
• Can only contain a single primary partition
• Cannot participate in dynamic storage
• Cannot host extended partitions
• Cannot be marked active

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Drive Configurations

• Windows XP can manage configurations using basic
  storage partitions, but it can only create new
  drive configurations using dynamic storage
  devices
• Drive configurations supported by Windows XP
• Simple volumes
• Spanned volumes
• Striped volumes
• Drive configurations supported by Windows Server
• All above
• Mirrored volumes
• RAID 5 volumes

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Simple Volume

• Drive configuration of all or part of a single
  drive
• Does not provide any fault tolerance
• NTFS volumes can be extended FAT and FAT32
  volumes cannot

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Spanned Volume

• A drive configuration of two or more parts (up to
  32) of one or more drives or two or more entire
  drives
• Data is written to the first drive in the volume
  until it is full, then it continues on the next
  volume
• Does not provide any fault tolerance
• Cannot be part of a striped volume or mirrored
  volume
• NTFS spanned volumes can be extended FAT and
  FAT32 cannot
• Also called an extended volume

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Striped Volume

• A drive configuration of two or more parts (up to
  32) of one or more drives or two or more entire
  drives (up to 32)
• Data is written to all drives in equal amounts
  (64KB units) to spread workload and improve
  performance
• Does not provide any fault tolerance
• Cannot be mirrored or extended

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RAID Level 0Disk Stripping
DATA
RAID Level 0disk stripping
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Mirrored Volume (server)

• Refers to a drive configuration of a single
  volume that is duplicated onto another volume on
  a different hard drive
• Provides fault tolerance

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RAID Level 1Disk Mirroring
Mirroring
DATA
Drive 0
Drive 1
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Raid 5 Volume (server)

• A drive configuration of three or more parts (up
  to 32) of one or more drives or three or more
  entire drives (up to 32)
• Data is written to all drives in equal amounts to
  spread workload
• Parity information is added to the written data
  to allow for drive failure recovery
• Provides fault tolerance
• Also known as disk striping with parity

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RAID Level 5
DATA
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File Systems Supported by Windows 2000

• FAT (FAT16)
• Retained for backward compatibility with other
  OSs
• Allows easy upgrade to Windows 2000
• Enables multi-boot systems to share data drives
• FAT32
• Supports larger volumes
• Offers multi-boot shared drives with Windows 98
  and Windows 95 (OSR2)
• NTFS
• Preferred file system
• Offers significantly larger volume support, file
  by file compression, and file by file security

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FAT

• Originally developed for DOS
• Maintains backward compatibility with previous
  operating systems while supporting newer features
• Most often used to format floppies and other
  removable media in Windows XP

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Features of FAT Under Windows XP

• Supports volumes up to 4 GB in size
• Most efficient on volumes smaller than 256 MB
• Root directory can only contain 512 entries
• No file level compression
• No file level security

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FAT32

• Enhanced version of FAT originally released with
  Windows 95 OSR2
• Main feature change is volume size

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FAT and FAT32

• A FAT volume is divided into clusters

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NTFS

• Preferred file system of Windows XP
• Manages clusters more efficiently than FAT32
• Different version than Windows NT multi-boot
  system not recommended

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Features of NTFS Under Windows XP

• Supports volumes up to 2 TB in size
• Most efficient on volumes larger than 512 MB
• Root directory can contain unlimited entries
• File level compression
• File level security
• File level encryption
• Disk quotas
• POSIX support

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NTFS Default Cluster Sizes
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POSIX Support via NTFS

• POSIX Portable Operating System Interface for
  Computing Environment
• A set of standards drafted by the IEEE that
  defines various aspects of an operating system
• Programming interface
• Security
• Networking
• Graphical interface

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POSIX.1

• Based on ideas drawn from the UNIX file system
  and process model
• Addresses only API-level issues

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Disk Management Actions

• Used to create volumes and transform devices into
  dynamic storage
• Offer several other useful features via the All
  Tasks submenu of the Action menu

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Commands in All Tasks Submenu of the Action Menu

• Add Mirror
• Change Drive Letter and Path
• Create Partition
• Create Volume
• Delete Partition
• Explore
• Extend Volume
• Format
• Help

• Import Foreign Disks
• Mark Partition Active
• Open
• Properties
• Reactivate Disk
• Reactivate Volume
• Remove Disk
• Revert to Basic Disk
• Upgrade to Dynamic Disk

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Non-context Sensitive Commands in Action Menu

• Refresh
• Rescan Disks
• Restore Basic Disk Configuration

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A Drives Properties Dialog Box

• Disk
• Type
• Status
• Capacity
• Unallocated Space

• Device Type
• Hardware Vendor
• Adapter Name
• Volumes contained on this disk

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A Drives Properties Dialog Box
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Drive Management
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Tabs on a Partition or Volume Properties Dialog
Box

• General
• Tools
• Hardware
• Sharing
• Security (NTFS only)
• Quota (NTFS only)

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General Tab

• Label
• Type
• File System
• Used Space

• Free Space
• Capacity
• Graph
• Disk Cleanup

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Tools Tab

• Error-checking
• Backup
• Defragmentation

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Hardware Tab

• Lists all physical storage devices and their type
• Accesses same Troubleshooting and Properties (for
  drivers) utilities as accessed through the Device
  Manager

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Sharing Tab

• Used to share partitions with the network

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Security Tab

• Used to set the NTFS access permissions on the
  volume or partition as a whole

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Security Tab
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Quota Tab

• Used to define disk use limitations on NTFS
  volumes and partitions
• Options
• Enable quota management
• Deny disk space to users exceeding quota limit
• Do not limit disk usage
• Limit disk space to
• Set warning level to
• Log event when a user exceeds their quota limit
• Log event when a user exceeds warning level
• Quota Entries

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Quota Tab
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Assigning Drive Letters and Mount Points

• Methods used to access formatted volumes
• Drive letters
• Used to grant applications and user interface
  utilities access to file system resources
• Mount point or mounted volume
• Maps a volume or partition to an empty directory
  on an NTFS volume or partition

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Freeing Disk Space

• Disk Cleanup tool utility
• Removes deleted, orphaned, temporary, or
  downloaded files

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Defragmenting Hard Drives

• Disk Defragmenter utility
• Reorganizes files so they are stored contiguously
  and no gaps are left between files

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Defragmenting Hard Drives
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Disk Defragmenting Report
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File System Object Level Controls

• Accessed via Properties dialog boxes of either a
  folder or an object
• Minor differences in dialog boxes depending on
  whether file system is FAT/FAT32 or NTFS
• No difference in file system objects due to basic
  or dynamic disks as hosts

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Offline Files

• Accessed via Properties dialog boxes of either a
  folder or an object
• Client accessing files must also select the files
  that they want to have available offline from My
  Network Places (Network Neighborhood).
• Tools -gt Synchronize Offline files