Comparison of file systems

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

General information

[edit]
File system Creator Year of introduction Original operating system
DECtape DEC 1964 PDP-6 Monitor
OS/3x0 FS IBM 1964 OS/360
Level-D DEC 1968 TOPS-10
George 3 ICT (later ICL) 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]
ODS-1 DEC 1975 RSX-11
GEC DOS filing system extended GEC 1977 OS4000
FAT (8-bit) Microsoft (Marc McDonald) for NCR 1977 Microsoft Standalone Disk BASIC-80 (later Microsoft 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
ODS-2 DEC 1979 OpenVMS
FAT12 Seattle Computer Products (Tim Paterson) 1980 QDOS/86-DOS (later IBM PC DOS 1.0)
ProDOS Apple 1980 Apple SOS (later ProDOS 8)
DFS Acorn Computers Ltd 1982 Acorn BBC Micro MOS
ADFS Acorn Computers Ltd 1983 Acorn Electron (later Arthur/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" (now Sitronics) 1985 Vilnius Basic, BK monitor program
HFS Apple 1985 System 2.1
Amiga OFS[1] Metacomco for Commodore 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, and AmigaOS
HPFS IBM & Microsoft 1989 OS/2 1.2
Rock Ridge 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 (now z/OS)
FAT16X Microsoft 1995 MS-DOS 7.0 / Windows 95
Joliet ("CDFS") Microsoft 1995 Microsoft Windows, Linux, "classic" Mac OS, and FreeBSD
UDF ISO/ECMA/OSTA 1995 —
FAT32, FAT32X Microsoft 1996 MS-DOS 7.10 / 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
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, and AmigaOS
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 to OS/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 UC, San Diego 2017 Linux
BlueStore/Cephfs Red Hat, University of California, 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

[edit]
File system
Stores file owner
POSIX
file permissions
Creation timestamps
Last access/
read timestamps
Last metadata change
timestamps
Last archive
timestamps
Security/
MAC labels
Metadata checksum/
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
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
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
Rock Ridge Yes Yes No Yes[v] Yes No No[w] No[x] No[x] No
Joliet ("CDFS") 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
Security/
MAC labels
Metadata checksum/
ECC


Features

[edit]

File capabilities

[edit]
File system Hard links Symbolic links Block journaling Metadata-only journaling Case-sensitive Case-preserving File Change Log XIP Resident files (inline data)
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 Yes ? ? ?
Version 6 Unix file system (V6FS) Yes No No No Yes Yes No No No
Version 7 Unix file system (V7FS) Yes No[y] No No Yes Yes No No No
exFAT No No No Partial (with TexFAT only) No Yes No No No
FAT12 No No No Partial (with TFAT12 only) No Partial (with VFAT LFNs only) No No No
FAT16 / FAT16B / FAT16X No No No Partial (with TFAT16 only) No Partial (with VFAT LFNs only) No No No
FAT32 / FAT32X No No No? Partial (with TFAT32 only) No Partial (with VFAT LFNs only) No No No
GFS Yes Yes[z] Yes Yes[aa] Yes Yes No No ?
HPFS No No No No No Yes No No ?
NTFS Yes Yes[ab] No[ac] Yes[ac] (2000) Yes[ad] Yes Yes ? Yes (approximately 700 bytes)
HFS Plus Yes[16] Yes No Yes[ae] Optional[af] Yes Yes[ag] No ?
FFS Yes Yes No No Yes Yes No No No
UFS1 Yes Yes No No Yes Yes No No No
UFS2 Yes Yes No Yes[ah] [21] [ai] Yes Yes No ? No
HAMMER Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes ? No ?
LFS Yes Yes Yes[aj] No Yes Yes No No ?
EROFS Yes Yes No No Yes Yes No No Yes
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[ak] ?
ext3 Yes Yes Yes (2001) [al] Yes (2001) Yes Yes No Yes ?
ext4 Yes Yes Yes[al] Yes Yes, optional [24] Yes No Yes Yes (approximately 160 bytes)[25]
NOVA Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes No Yes ?
F2FS Yes Yes Yes[aj] No Yes Yes No No ?
Lustre Yes Yes Yes[al] Yes Yes Yes Yes No ?
NILFS Yes Yes Yes[aj] No Yes Yes No No ?
ReiserFS Yes Yes Yes[am] 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[al] Yes Yes[an] Yes Yes ? ?
JFS Yes Yes Yes Yes (1990) Yes[ao] Yes No ? ?
QFS Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes No No ?
BFS Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes ? No ?
NSS Yes Yes ? Yes Yes[ap] Yes[ap] Yes[aq] No ?
NWFS Yes[ar] Yes[ar] No No Yes[ap] Yes[ap] Yes[aq] No ?
ODS-2 Yes Yes[as] No Yes No No Yes No ?
ODS-5 Yes Yes[as] No Yes No Yes Yes ? ?
UDF Yes Yes Yes[aj] Yes[aj] Yes Yes No Yes Yes[27]
VxFS Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes ? ?
Fossil No No No No Yes Yes Yes No ?
ZFS Yes Yes Yes[at] No[at] Yes Yes No No Yes (112 bytes)[28]
Btrfs Yes Yes Yes[au] No Yes Yes ? ? Yes (2 KiB)[29]
Bcachefs Yes Yes Yes[av] No Yes 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[aw] Yes ? ? Yes[ad] Yes ? ? ?
ISO 9660 No No No No No No No No ?
Rock Ridge Yes Yes No No Yes Yes No No ?
Joliet ("CDFS") 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 Resident files

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 Data checksum/ ECC Persistent Cache Multiple Devices Compression Self-healing[ax]
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[ay] No
FAT16 / FAT16B / FAT16X No No No No No No Partial[ay] 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[az][32] No No No Yes No
HFS Plus No No[ba] 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
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[aj] No No Yes No No No No
ReiserFS No No No No No No No No
Reiser4 ? Yes[bb] ? 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
ODS-2 Yes No No No No No No No
ODS-5 Yes No No No No No No
UDF No No No No No No No No
VxFS Yes[bc] No Yes No No No No No
Fossil Yes No Yes No No No Yes No
ZFS Yes Yes[bd] Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes[be] Yes
Btrfs Yes No Yes Yes[bf] No Yes Yes[bg] Yes
Bcachefs Yes Yes No Yes[bh] No Yes Yes[bi] No
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 No[bj] No Yes No[bk] No No No[bl] No[bk]
ISO 9660 No No No[bm] No No No No No
Rock Ridge No No No[bm] No No No No No
Joliet ("CDFS") No No No[bm] 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 Data checksum/ ECC Persistent Cache Multiple Devices Compression Self-healing[ax]


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
FAT16 / FAT16B / FAT16X misc. Yes[bn] No Yes[bn] No No
FAT32 / FAT32X misc. Yes[bn] No Yes[bn] No No
exFAT misc. No No No No No
NTFS Windows Yes Yes Yes Yes No
ReFS Windows ? Yes ? No No
HFS macOS No No No No No
HFS+ macOS No Yes No Yes No
APFS macOS ? ? ? ? ?
EROFS Linux Yes No No No Yes
SquashFS Linux No No No No No
NOVA Linux No No No No No
JFS[47] Linux Yes No No No No
XFS[48] Linux No Yes No[49] No[49] No
Lustre[50] Linux ? Yes No No Yes
F2FS[51] Linux Yes No No No No
NTFS[52] Linux Yes No Yes No No
ext2[53] Linux Yes No Yes No No
ext3[53] Linux Yes Yes Yes No No
ReiserFS[54] Linux Yes Yes Yes No No
Reiser4[55] Linux Yes Yes Yes No No
ext4[53] Linux Yes Yes Yes No No
Btrfs[56] Linux Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Bcachefs[43] Linux Yes Yes No No Yes
NILFS[57] Linux No Yes No Yes No
ZFS misc. No Yes No Yes Partial[58]
JFS2 AIX Yes Yes Yes Yes No
UFS2[59] FreeBSD Yes Yes (FreeBSD 10.0-RELEASE or later) No No No
HAMMER DragonflyBSD ? ? ? ? ?
BlueStore/Cephfs Linux No Yes No Yes Yes


Allocation and layout policies

[edit]
File system Sparse files Block suballocation Tail packing Extents Variable file block size[bo] 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[60][61]
Version 6 Unix file system (V6FS) Yes No No No No No ? No
Version 7 Unix file system (V7FS) Yes No No No No No ? No
exFAT No No No Partial (only if the file fits into one contiguous block range) No No No Yes (Linux)
FAT12 Partial (only inside of compressed volumes)[62] Partial (only inside of Stacker 3/4 and DriveSpace 3 compressed volumes[31]) No Partial (only inside of compressed volumes)[63] No No No Yes (Linux)
FAT16 / FAT16B / FAT16X Partial (only inside of compressed volumes)[62] Partial (only inside of Stacker 3/4 and DriveSpace 3 compressed volumes[31]) No Partial (only inside of compressed volumes)[63] No No No Yes (Linux)
FAT32 / FAT32X No No No No No No No Yes (Linux)
GFS Yes No Partial[bp] No No No ? Yes
HPFS No No No Yes No No ? Yes (Linux)
NTFS Yes Partial No Yes No No ? Yes (NT 6.1+; Linux)
HFS Plus No No No Yes No No ? Yes (macOS)
FFS Yes 8:1[bq] No No No No ? No
UFS1 Yes 8:1[bq] No No No No ? No
UFS2 Yes 8:1[bq] No No Yes No ? Yes[64][65]
LFS Yes 8:1[bq] No No No No Yes ?
EROFS Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No No
ext Yes No No No No No No No
Xiafs Yes No No No No No ? ?
ext2 Yes No[br] No No No No No Yes
ext3 Yes No[br] No No No No No Yes
ext4 Yes No[br] No Yes No Yes No Yes
NOVA Yes No No Yes No No Yes ?
F2FS Yes No No Partial[bs] No Yes Yes Yes[66]
Lustre Yes No No Yes No Yes ? ?
NILFS Yes No No No No Yes Yes Yes (Linux NILFS2)
ReiserFS Yes Yes[bt] Yes No No No ? ?
Reiser4 Yes Yes[bt] Yes Yes[bu] No Yes ? Testing[67]
OCFS ? No No Yes No No ? ?
OCFS2 Yes No No Yes No No ? Yes (Linux)
XFS Yes No No Yes No Yes Yes, on request[68] Yes (Linux)
JFS Yes Yes No Yes No 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[bv] No No No No ? ?
ODS-5 ? No No Yes No No ? ?
VxFS Yes ? No Yes No No ? ?
UDF Yes No No Yes No ?[bw] Yes, for write once read many media No
Fossil ? No No No No No ? ?
ZFS Yes Yes No No Yes Yes Yes Yes
Btrfs Yes Yes No[69] Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Bcachefs ? ? ? Yes ? Yes Yes ?
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 Yes[bx] No No No No
Rock Ridge No No No Yes[bx] No No No No
Joliet ("CDFS") No No No Yes[bx] 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 file block size[bo] 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[70]
APFS No Partial (read-only with apfs-fuse[71] or linux-apfs[72]) Yes
(Since macOS Sierra) 		No No No No No No No No No No
BeeGFS No Yes ? No No No No No ? ? ? No No
DECtape No No No No No No 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
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,[73] available as a kernel module or FUSE driver for earlier versions) Yes No Yes No Yes (available as a FUSE driver) No No No Yes (available as a FUSE 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 (from DOS 7.10) Yes Yes Yes (from Windows 95 OSR2) 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 (from OS/2 1.2) ? No ? ? No
NTFS Partial (with third-party drivers) Yes Native since Linux Kernel 5.15 NTFS3. Older kernels may use backported NTFS3 driver or ntfs-3g[74] Read only, write support needs Paragon NTFS or ntfs-3g Needs 3rd-party drivers like Paragon NTFS for Win98, DiskInternals NTFS Reader Yes No Yes with ntfs-3g ? Yes with ntfs-3g No Yes with ntfs-3g ? With third party tools
Apple 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+ [75] Yes No ? Yes No ? No No
Apple HFS Plus No Partial - writing support only to unjournalled FS Yes No Needs Paragon HFS+ [75] Yes from Mac OS 8.1 No ? with addon No ? No No
FFS No ? Yes No ? ? Yes ? ? ? ? ? No
UFS1 No Partial - read only Yes No Partial (with ufs2tools, read only) ? Yes No ? ? Yes ? No
UFS2 No Yes Yes No Partial (with ufs2tools, 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 [76][77]

No No No No No No No No No No No
ext2 No Yes Needs Paragon ExtFS [78] or ext2fsx Partial (read-only, with explore2fs)[79] Needs Paragon ExtFS [80] or partial with Ext2 IFS[81] or ext2fsd[82] No Yes No Yes ? ? ? No
ext3 No Yes Needs Paragon ExtFS [78] or partial with ext2fsx (journal not updated on writing) Partial (read-only, with explore2fs)[79] Needs Paragon ExtFS [80] or partial with Ext2 IFS[81] or ext2fsd[82] Partial (read only)[citation needed] Yes[83] No with addon ? Yes ? Yes
ext4 No Yes Needs Paragon ExtFS [78] No Yes, with the optional WSL2; physical and VHDX virtual disks.[84][85] ? Yes since FreeBSD 12.0[83] No with addon ? ? ? Yes
NOVA No Yes No No No No No No No No No No No
Lustre No Yes[86] ? No No ? No ? ? ? Yes ? No
NILFS No Yes as an external kernel module ? No ? ? No ? ? ? ? ? No
F2FS No Yes No No No No No No No No No No Yes
ReiserFS No Yes ? No No ? Partial - Read Only from 6.0 to 10.x[87] and dropped in 11.0[88][89] ? 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 Partial - client only[90] ? No No ? No No ? ? Yes ? No
Be File System No Partial - read-only ? No No ? No No Yes ? ? ? No
NSS No Yes via EVMS[by] ? No No ? No No ? ? ? ? No
NWFS Partial (with Novell drivers) ? ? No No ? Yes No ? ? ? ? No
ODS-2 No ? ? No No ? No No ? ? ? ? No
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[bz] Yes[bz] No No No Yes[bz] No No No Yes[bz] ? No
ZFS No Yes with FUSE[91] or as an external kernel module[92] Yes with Read/Write Developer Preview[93] No Yes[94] No Yes No No No Yes No No
Btrfs No Yes ? No Yes with WinBtrfs[95] ? 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
Rock Ridge No Yes Yes No No No Yes No No Yes Yes ? No
Joliet ("CDFS") 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.[96][97]) No No No No No No
BlueStore/Cephfs No Yes No[ca] No No[cb] No No[ca] 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 Maximum filename length Allowable characters in directory entries[cc] Maximum pathname length Maximum file size Maximum volume size[cd] Max number of files
AdvFS 255 characters Any byte except NUL[ce] No limit defined[cf] 16 TiB (17.59 TB) 16 TiB (17.59 TB) ?
APFS 255 UTF-8 characters Unicode 9.0 encoded in UTF-8[98] ? 8 EiB (9.223 EB) ? 263 [99]
Bcachefs 255 bytes Any byte except '/' and NUL No limit defined 16 EiB (18.44 EB) 16 EiB (18.44 EB) 264
BeeGFS 255 bytes Any byte except NUL[ce] No limit defined[cf] 16 EiB (18.44 EB) 16 EiB (18.44 EB) ?
BFS 255 bytes Any byte except NUL[ce] No limit defined[cf] 12,288 bytes to 260 GiB (279.1 GB)[cg] 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 [100] Not limited Not limited, default is 100,000 files per directory [101]
Btrfs 255 bytes Any byte except '/' and NUL No limit defined 16 EiB (18.44 EB) 16 EiB (18.44 EB) 264
CBM DOS 16 bytes Any byte except NUL 0 (no directory hierarchy) 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 since CP/M 2.2) 32 MiB (33.55 MB) 512 MiB (536.8 MB) ?
DECtape 6.3 A–Z, 0–9 DTxN:FILNAM.EXT = 15 369,280 bytes
(577 × 640) 		369,920 bytes
(578 × 640) 		?
Disk Operating System (GEC DOS) ? ? ? ? at least 131,072 bytes ? ?
Elektronika BK tape format 16 bytes ? No directory hierarchy 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 NUL, /[ce] No limit defined[cf] 16 EiB (18.44 EB) 1 EiB (1.152 EB) 264
exFAT 255 UTF-16 characters Unicode except for control codes 0x0000 - 0x001F or " * / : < > ? \ | [102] 32,760 characters with each path component no more than 255 characters[103] 16 EiB (18.44 EB)[103] 64 ZiB (75.55 ZB) (276 bytes) ?
ext 255 bytes Any byte except NUL[ce] No limit defined[cf] 2 GiB (2.147 GB) 2 GiB (2.147 GB) ?
ext2 255 bytes Any byte except NUL, /[ce] No limit defined[cf] 16 GiB (17.17 GB) to 2 TiB (2.199 TB)[cd] 2 TiB (2.199 TB) to 32 TiB (35.18 TB) ?
ext3 255 bytes Any byte except NUL, /[ce] No limit defined[cf] 16 GiB (17.17 GB) to 2 TiB (2.199 TB)[cd] 2 TiB (2.199 TB) to 32 TiB (35.18 TB) ?
ext4 255 bytes[104] Any byte except NUL, /[ce] No limit defined[cf] 16 GiB (17.17 GB) to 16 TiB (17.59 TB)[cd][105] 1 EiB (1.152 EB) 232 (static inode limit specified at creation)
F2FS 255 bytes Any byte except NUL, /[ce] No limit defined[cf] 4,228,213,756 KiB (4.329 TB) 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 ? ? ?
FAT12/FAT16 8.3 (255 UCS-2 characters with LFN)[ch] SFN: OEM A-Z, 0-9, ! # $ % & ' ( ) - @ ^ _ ` { } ~, 0x80-0xFF, 0x20. LFN: Unicode except NUL, " * / : < > ? \ | [cc][ce] No limit defined[cf] 32 MiB (33.55 MB) (4 GiB (4.294 GB))[ci] 1 MiB (1.048 MB) to 32 MiB (33.55 MB) ?
FAT16B/FAT16X 8.3 (255 UCS-2 characters with LFN)[ch] SFN: OEM A-Z, 0-9, ! # $ % & ' ( ) - @ ^ _ ` { } ~, 0x80-0xFF, 0x20. LFN: Unicode except NUL, " * / : < > ? \ | [cc][ch][ce] No limit defined[cf] 2 (4) GiB[ci] (2.147 GB) 16 MiB (16.77 MB) to 2 (4) GiB (2.147 GB) ?
FAT32/FAT32X 8.3 (255 UCS-2 characters with LFN)[ch] SFN: OEM A-Z, 0-9, ! # $ % & ' ( ) - @ ^ _ ` { } ~, 0x80-0xFF, 0x20. LFN: Unicode except NUL, " * / : < > ? \ | [cc][ch][ce] 32,760 characters with each path component no more than 255 characters[103] 4 GiB (4.294 GB)[103] 512 MiB (536.8 MB) to 16 TiB (17.59 TB)<