This chapter explores the many aspects of the Windows 2000 file system, including file system structure, the Distributed File System, auditing, and system repair and recovery. | Windows 2000 File Systems This chapter explores the many aspects of the Windows 2000 file system including file system structure the Distributed File System auditing and system repair and recovery. An Overview of Disk Structure In order to understand the file system options in Windows 2000 you first need to understand some basic physical disk concepts and terms. This section covers concepts and terms that will help you understand file system structure in Windows 2000. This chapter does not cover basic hardware storage concepts such as heads and head gap as these topics aren t germane to an understanding of file systems. This chapter focuses on logical disk structure rather than physical disk structure. The circular path a head traverses as it sits motionless over a disk platter is called a track. The tracks are magnetically encoded on the disk during formatting and define the physical structure of the disk s storage space. The tracks that reside in the same location on each platter form a cylinder. Each track is divided into a certain number of sectors the number of which depends on the disk type and location of the track on the disk. Sectors are the smallest physical storage units on a disk but they are grouped into clusters which are the smallest logical storage units on the disk. Figure 21-1 illustrates basic disk structure. In This Chapter An Overview of Disk Structure FAT16 and FAT32 NTFS Choosing a File System Optimizing Storage Capacity Managing the Distributed File System Working with Mounted Volumes Hierarchical Storage Management 748 Part VI File Print and Web Services Each cluster comprises a certain number of sectors. The number of sectors in each cluster depends on the drive type partition size and file system explained in the following sections . When the operating system stores a file the storage space is allocated not by sector but by cluster. The cluster size has a significant impact on the amount of free space on a disk as you ll learn later .
