Explaining File Systems: NTFS, exFAT, FAT32, ext4 & More

NTFS, FAT32, exFAT, ext4 and APFS are just some of the file systems used to organize data on storage drives. This video outlines the differences between these and other file systems, and explains how to choose between them.
You may also be interested in some of my other videos, including:
Explaining PCIe Slots: • Explaining PCIe Slots
Explaining RAM: • Explaining RAM
More videos on computing topics can be found on the ExplainingComputers channel: / explainingcomputers
You may also like my other channel, ExplainingTheFuture, at: / explainingthefuture
#FileSystems #NTFS #exFAT #FAT32 #ExplainingComputers

[@loughkb]

Additional note on file system robustness and reliability. Based on years in I.T., the last job was ten years in a shop that uses hundreds of Macs for workstations. FAT and FAT variants are fairly reliable, but will occasionally corrupt a file. Recovery is generally possible and file system repair usually possible. NTFS is robust and reliable, but when it breaks, it breaks hard and recovery/repair is about a 50/50 possibility. EXT4 is very robust and almost never corrupts a file. Repair and recovery in those rare cases is almost always successful. ZFS is solid. I've never run into problems with it. HFS+ is the worst file system ever created. It regularly corrupts files and recovery is rarely successful. 80% of the problems I fixed on mac workstations involved using a 3rd party utility to repair the file system. APFS came out just after I left the last job, so I have no direct experience with it and can't offer any opinion.

[@gottagowork]

I would say with FAT32 you're eventually guaranteed corrupted files, merged files, indexes that cannot be read etc. Only use it for use with devices that can only read FAT32, and keep it's contents backed up **when** you need to restore it.

[@gokul6041]

Thankyou for the notes....

[@szponiasty]

ext4 has also awesome functions, like space preallocation: when you write a large file on an ext4, the continous space is preallocated, so the file is writeen on a hard drive continously. This is very important if you're using old magnetic HDDs not SSDs, where drive head normally would have to jump all over the plates to access one file. With ext4 you maximise HDDs performance, specially for very large files eg. while editing videos, or playing huge games.

[@builder396]

@@gottagowork Id still say its perfectly valid for flash drives and such that generally store data with only rarely if ever having any read/write activity, especially the latter, since youre pretty unlikely to corrupt stuff thats not in use.

[@builder396]

Bit off topic here I guess, but what do you do if an NTFS system drive fails? The drive in question is long gone and died a long, painful death with many nuisances like long delays when trying to read files (like solid 10 second freezes), corrupted files all over the place, frequent CHKDSK runs on startup, consistent clicking noises etc. Is there any file system that has a better chance at handling failures like that?

[@TimNurTV]

I'm a big fan of the aesthetic on this channel. It reminds me of watching the discovery channel when I was a kid

[@ExplainingComputers]

:)

[@nro6739]

I love his videos. They’re so informative and i feel like he has so much experience to speak from; it makes it seem like he was sent from the future to teach about electronics. Music makes it even better

[@massinakmin8340]

I miss the old discovery channel. Now it is all about real life tv. People selling trash and pretend it is real and not acting.

[@xerxes2083]

@Milton Keenes native exfat support is still pretty young in ubuntu, it came in 20.04

[@aer0449]

Yeah your right ❤️

[@johnphilippatos]

"16 Exabytes, or effectively unlimited" This is the updated line from the original "640K ought to be enough for anyone". Excellent video Chris. Thanks a ton!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Cool.

[@MikeAnn193]

I remember such a limit on _RAM,_ but had forgotten the file size limit. I was only the second person I knew to buy a PC, which I wanted for simple word processing and databases. So for a few years it _was_ enough (pre-Windows and pre-Worldwide Web). 😏 But I knew it _wasn't_ enough for the audio/video uses I dreamed of. It's just that in the late 80s, the beefiest hardware I could _afford_ was a $5,000 machine -- from a company that had just changed its name from PCs Limited to _Dell._ DOS tricks allowed me to take advantage of the "extended" and "expanded" memory (remember those workarounds?). After all, I had a whopping _Megabyte_ of the stuff. 😃 The machine also had a "386" processor and a monstrous 90 _Megabyte_ hard drive, too. 😮 Now I have countless individual _files_ larger than that. 😄Truly amazing how far the technology has advanced.

[@johnphilippatos]

@@MikeAnn193 Haha, yeah, I remember those times. First computer I ever bought was a pretty decent Sinclair ZX Spectrum +2. Programming in Basic and stuff. Hell, I had a whole 128 KB of Ram available. I could look those Commodore 64 users straight in the eye. Good times

[@MikeAnn193]

​@@johnphilippatos 😀128 KB, wow. Few people I've told my story to have been able to outdo me, but you managed! The brand name Sinclair sounds familiar, but I remember nothing about them. A friend of mine -- the _first_ computer owner I alluded to -- had one that used _cassette tapes_ as the storage medium. That's about the only detail I recall, but he probably also had to program in BASIC. I seem to recall he even had to load the operating system from the cassette each time, which probably took at least a few minutes. Do you still have your Sinclair? I wouldn't have the heart to get rid of my Dell, even if it didn't hold some treasured files.

[@johnphilippatos]

@@MikeAnn193 Well, almost everything you mention are quite accurate about Sinclair. Sir Clive Sinclair was a pioneer in the field, who was the first to introduce a low budget home computer in the UK market, the ZX80, at the dawn of the 80's. He achieved further acclaim by introducing the Sinclair ZX Spectrum series computers and his final act was ZX Spectrum+ 128K. He sold his company to Alan Michael Sugar TRADemarks, known as AMSTRAD and their first model on the series was the updated ZX Spectrum+ 128K, called Sinclair ZX Spectrum +2. It featured a quite normal keyboard compared to the original Sinclair's crappy one and it had an analog tape (cassette) recorder embedded in the case. Everything was stored there, any program took forever to upload in the memory, and you would see the "Tape Loading Error" message in the end, more frequently that you could ever imagine. The operating system was not stored there, it was stored in the ROM and the environment was Spectrum Basic, not DOS, CP/M, or any other operating system. We gave the instructions in Basic, we programmed in Basic, everything we did was in Basic. It was quite hard, but it gave you a better understanding about how a computer works, as the same principles are more or less still valid today. It gave you an inner look if you know what I mean. Unfortunately in Greece, other than the Commodore's and ATARI's whereabouts, we had little info at the time about what was happening on the other side of the Atlantic. We heard the words MS-DOS and "IBM compatible" for the first time, when AMSTRAD built its very first IBM compatible called AMSTRAD 1512. But since it was mainly a business machine, little did we care about it. Unfortunately I don't have my Spectrum anymore, It was long out of order and was lost during my moving from my parent's house when I got married on 1995. Cheers mate and stay safe.

[@kirillsokol5530]

"16 Exabytes, or effectively unlimited" Can't wait to look back on this and just think, we really thought 16 exabytes was alot. It's just as funny whenever reading system architecture books and seeing "Since it support up to one gigabyte of ram, it practically doesn't have any restrains"

[@chrisschembari2486]

Every time I hear of exabytes, it takes me back to SGU, where in one episode, the knowledge of an entire civilization is being downloaded to a ship's computer. One engineer looks at a monitor showing the transfer progress and says, "900 exabytes. Still just a drop in the bucket." www.gateworld.net/universe/s2/epilogue/

[@kalleklp7291]

I remember when I programmed BASIC on a C64 which had an incredible amount of 64 KB (as long as the thing had power connected). 20 years from now (if it takes that long) we'll have optical PC stations and Exabytes will be as common as Gigabytes today. AI will vastly boost our computer capacity the more it becomes an everyday reality. :)

[@spacejaga]

Yeah and first IBM HDDs... With incredible megabytes on them.... Growing up with machines past 386 even 10 GB seemed more than enough. And then internet came along. And movies just rising from 200-300mb rips to 700... And then 1,36 GB. And still growing. I personally never saw a need for 50GB Blu-ray push but some people need to spend extra cash so why wouldn't someone take it.... And one day even Americans will have a decent internet so whole world will be able to finally progress beyond 720p streaming even being an option....

[@karstenberg3954]

Yeah, I was thinking about my computers I had so far. In the end of 1997 (Pentium 1/166 MHz/32MB RAM/2 GB HDD) and when I had my second PC in 2001 (Pentium 4/1,8 GHz/80 GB HDD), when I was like: "WOW, nobody (except NASA) would ever be able to fill it totally." And I already thought that, when my father had a PC in 1999 with a 20 GB HDD. :D

[@alfathmuqoddas6986]

technology grows at exponential rate, one day 16eb will fit in our pocket sooner than we thought

[@BipinRamachandran]

tip: if you ever hit size limit on a FAT32 drive on windows and too lazy to backup & format, try this command: 'CONVERT X:/FS:NTFS' where 'X:' is the FAT32 drive. This command will convert the file system to NTFS while keeping existing files.

[@diarykeeper]

handy!

[@heiieihy]

Thank you Sir!

[@bersercker]

how is that even posible?

[@dieselgeezer18]

@@bersercker evil magic

[@DTMAce]

@@bersercker That tool has been around since the early days of Windows 9x. But the likelihood of needing that tool these days is low. The Windows OS's from the last decade and half or so require NTFS to even run, and the chance you would format an additional drive with FAT32 is going to be about nil. The only thing you could possibly run into this on would be external USB memory sticks. As for whether the tool can do exFAT directly, no it won't. It only works on FAT32 and only to convert them to NTFS. If you want to do exFAT, you would have to backup the stick, reformat with exFAT then copy back the contents. You also can't use the tool to convert from NTFS to something else either.

[@ThioJoe]

This is a very good internet video 👍

[@user-yw8sr3uj1w]

Unlike yours ThioJoe

[@HeenaPatel253]

OMG I WATCH YOU HELLO

[@charlesjsescoto]

@@user-yw8sr3uj1w lol

[@alwinvillero4404]

veRy Godo inTer NT viOed !!11!1!

[@stackza8740]

Hello ThioJoe!

[@mohammedabbas1175]

I've been using computers for more than ten years and I've never really understood what are the differences between the file systems.Thanks to you, and the KZbin recommendation algorithm, that's a thing of the past.

[@karstenberg3954]

Actually it is about the limitations (size of single files, size of partitions, support of OS (which is really NOT up2date)), but not about technical aspects or rights at all (e.g. sudo modprobe ./myfile 777)

[@binarybagel]

four years later, this is still very good learning material. very comprehensive and helpful!

[@user-tm3fz7qx3s]

I usually watch Linus Tech Tips to get a refresher on tech. When he explained file systems, it was biased toward Windows file systems. It was unusual for him not to explain common desktop Linux, MacOS, Android, and unusual file systems. It was unusual because even though he explains stuff as fast as possible, he left out many other file systems for more time to joke around. I'm glad that you actually took the time to explain this subject in more detail!

[@unusedaccount9130]

DaddyKitty04 LTT is very biased about Windows and insults Apple and Linux a lot. That's why I've stopped watching him.

[@IosifStalinsendsyoutoGulag]

@@unusedaccount9130 Apple sux

[@CZghost]

@@unusedaccount9130 I've never gave him subscription, I only watch his videos when I need to find some quick info or I am bored. I do not watch him regularily, as most of the time, I just stumble upon his videos by random or as a search result.

[@lightningparadox]

@@unusedaccount9130 he explains stuff more related to gaming. Apple sucks for gaming so he keeps his distance from explaining more about apple

[@unusedaccount9130]

@@lightningparadox Good point... you'd think though that Linus Tech Tips wouldn't be mostly for gaming

[@dheerajnarenderyadav2938]

Sir, I have great respect for you. I have never seen anyone explaining Computers like you do.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Wow, thanks

[@jamestolliver9970]

I kept having issues trying to transfer large files between my two linux computers because i didnt know about the 4gb limitation on my fat32 usb drive. Watching your video to just casually learn more has actually helped me with an issue ive been having for a while, thank you.

[@chrisschembari2486]

Try formatting your USB drive to exfat. A Linux distro running the latest kernel (version 5.4) has native exfat support. If your kernel is older than that, you can install exfat support with just a couple of packages. In Kubuntu, for example, the packages are named something like "exfat-utils" and "exfat-fuse", and are in the default repos. I found them by searching for exfat in Muon package manager.

[@jamestolliver9970]

@@chrisschembari2486 that's the plan now, thanks

[@megapangolin1093]

Brilliant, clear, concise video, well spoken and enunciated and therefore great for non native speakers too. Always appreciate your work. Thank you.

[@thomasottvideos]

Mr. Barnatt... You have delivered another EXCELLENT technical tutorial in a concise manner!! When I entered the personal computer industry in 1983, most learning was via self-teaching and trial and error. There were NO Christopher Barnatt types openly sharing their knowledge. Thanks for sharing your time and knowledge with all the young (and not so young) eager learners in the world. Kind regards, T. Phoenix, AZ USA

[@wavemaker54]

Hey Chris, I’ve been watching your channel for some time and just want to thank you for all the work you’ve done explaining... computers and devices along with software. Besides being informative and entertaining they’re presented delightfully and plainly enough for everyone to grasp the information you’re conveying. Thank you!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks John, your kind comments are appreciated.

[@kael070]

Just found out this channel when searching for the difference between fat and exFat, you explain things better than most teachers i've ever had, good work

[@nemooutis7934]

There are many file system discussions posted on-line. It is tedious to sort through these discussions. Your discussion is the best I've come across. Exactly what I've been looking for. Concise, well enough detailed, and crafted. If I want more information. I can go to print sources with a better than basic understanding of windows file systems. Most of what I've come across on-line is extremely stale and long winded or not relevant to what I want to know about Windows only file systems. Thank you... Good Job

[@CelticShae]

Christopher, you are so affable and engaging. You come across as a stereotypical gentleman from England (to this American), and I mean that only in the most complimentary of ways. Your calm voice and relaxed candor lend themselves brilliantly to your thorough but simple explanations of things I have often found confounding. Thank you so much for explaining computers to us. Your installments of this program are invaluable to me.

[@delmonti]

probably the best and concise guide to File Systems I've ever seen.

[@bobarnold4435]

Very clear presentation of the technologies. After 40+ years of using file systems, I thought I should learn about the differences. I particularly liked your story about re-formatting a file which subsequently exceeded the limits of that particular file system.

[@bluehornet6752]

Great video! I haven't gone through the details of these various file systems for 10+ years, since back in CS school. So thanks for the review!

[@SoulPoetryandOtherWorks]

The quality of your videos is always of a very high quality Open University or BBC Four production. Always educational and professionally delivered. Thank you.

[@extremelydave]

Good lord, yet ANOTHER great video. Every time I watch your videos I am amazed what you dig up. If you are not in the teaching profession, you have missed your calling sir, because you do such a good job at it for the thousands of us on the other side of your monitor.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks for this. I have been teaching/lecturing for about 29 years now, for 25 of those years as a member of staff in the University of Nottingham. Now freelance . . .

[@leot8024]

That last “ very soon “ always creeps me out, I have watched 100s of your videos and every single time WOW. Thanks for the awesome content.

[@Atreyu22]

Great video, I’ve been working with computers more than 20 years and is good to refresh the knowledge. Thank you

[@RobertKeenanComp-U-Right]

Wonderful and concise explanation of something that had my head spinning after starting to work with Windows/Mac/Linux systems routinely.Thank You.

[@ericturner7744]

Speaking of format. The intro and layouts in your videos reminds me of 70s technology tv shows in England.....This is a great channel. Especially the Pi videos.

[@dzikibill6756]

Your my hero !! I wish I had such a big knowlage about computers , but I`m thankful that I can learn from you !! Thank you !

[@staninjapan07]

Thanks. I have seen a few of your videos, and I like the fact that you always get to the point and include no nonsense. Keep up the good work!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks for your kind feedback, appreciated.

[@gokul6041]

Thank you a lot. Been confused which to choose for my SD-cards and external drives. Problem now solved.

[@braydenschultz8431]

Was just looking this up for a course i'm doing, perfect timing indeed

[@azratosh]

Quick, simple, straightforward. Thanks a lot, much appreciated!

[@aag619]

Thanks for this, great video. Straight to the point with no filler.

[@alvimuka1853]

This videos push learning at a higher level, something that youtube is missing

[@cam_DA_Hawkdriver]

I find it hard to believe we’re in 2019 and there is not a common file system across all devices. Still goes to show that all the operating systems are still silos for their own methods of madness. Good video Chris!

[@wikingagresor]

you always have to remember that ext4 is open source, so technically right now there is nothing preventing Microsoft or Apple to integrate support for it into their OS.

[@pilgrimm23]

Also, the actual physical file storage mediums have changed so much that a file written say on an IBM 1600 Bit Per Inch 9 track tape, then transferred to a 8" floppy, then 5.25 inch, then 3.5, then a Bournouli SCSI, then a CD, then DVD then Thumb drive...and unless some kind soul did this back when, today each of those formats can only be recovered if you find the drive or media at a flea market and retro-engineer it back into a modern system. The ONLY media for that data that is consistent from start to finish is.... the tech manual about it; ie a written page of print.

[@pilgrimm23]

oh early games, some text files, examples of early IBM JCL, perhaps original source listings of a COBOL ALGOL or FORTRAN coding... this and that :) My point being that we humans like to stash things away for the centuries. and back in the 70s and 80s we stashed on formats that now cannot be read.

[@drooghead]

It's OK because Linux can use all of the mentioned file systems and many more.

[@patricklindahl868]

Nice with standards, everybody got their own! :=)

[@8cyber.muse8]

Oh my goodness!!! Thank you so much for this video. It was absolutely AWESOME!!! Straight to the point, thorough, and organized in a way that's easy to understand! Thank you very much!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks.

[@d.joseph4356]

You make great videos. No nonsense, clear delivery and simple.

[@TheDefpom]

Thanks for this video, it cleared up a lot of uncertainties I had about the formats.

[@SovereignKnight74]

Once again, an excellent explanation! Your channel is invaluable. Keep up the great work because it's highly appreciated!

[@j_5244]

This was the best explanation of file systems I have found on KZbin

[@billgross3579]

I come back to this video for reference when I encounter file system issues. In the process of adding a permanently-mounted 500gb SSD to my RPi4 NextCloud system, I couldn't set owner. Turns out the SSD was exFAT. I reformatted it to ext4 and it worked perfectly. I learned it here. Thank you!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Hi Bill, glad you sorted it out! :)

[@dickcheesehead9714]

Thanks, my British mate. This was very useful. These are the typical things I want to know more of. Cheers!

[@EnilionVeno]

Very cool, my computer knowledge is outdated and incomplete, so this was a tasty update.

[@AseDeliri]

I love this guy. Straight to the point and great explanations.

[@cockur]

hands down the best, straight to the point, no bs video on the subject matter

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks. :)

[@freesaxon6835]

The joys of watching defrag

[@freesaxon6835]

@RDE Lutherie true, it's the basis of so many system !

[@freesaxon6835]

@Marcin Freitag WOW 2gb 😁

[@freesaxon6835]

@@serenity6080 🤔😂

[@CaveyMoth]

I need a defrag simulator for my SSD.

[@builder396]

@Marcin Freitag Win 98 had the prettiest defrag screen in the world. I watched that go on for hours when I was a kid.

[@stub1116]

That was a nice video, well presented to put forward the information contained within it. Good job!

[@techmario4761]

This video is very helpful to help me clarify some missed concepts about storage devices and file systems for my CompTIA A+ 902 certification exam which I'll be taking next month. I took a class for IT security, and never quite learned much about macOS/Linux specific technical things. Thank you!

[@patmat.]

Marvelously explained because you really know what you're talking about, unlike most other YT computer channels.

[@Deathrape2001]

There R many mistakes, like pretending U need NTFS more than U do, or that it is better or more reliable than FAT32 & so on. I've found the exact opposite is true. NTFS is absolute $hit.

[@ShaidaMuhammad]

I was studying Operating System Memory Management and You upload this. Wawwww. Thanks

Teacher Rules !

[@ShaidaMuhammad]

@RDE Lutherie Yeah. Storage Management is upcoming Chapter. That's why I said that.

[@DMSProduktions]

WOW!

[@pcuser80]

Tried ZFS today, so easy to create a raid works great. Thanks for the video and idea.

[@josefserf1926]

Best computer information channel bar none. This style was perfected decades ago and never bettered. Increasing the entertainment quotient inevitably means losing information transfer. Might mean more subs though 😉

[@edb5770]

woah loved the video. All the information I need. Easily explained and included all formats! Looking forward to you other videos!

[@hypoluxa]

Good overview of systems! Very helpful to know the specs of each.

[@globalhell5046]

Great coverage of this topic. Thank you!

[@amnesia1764]

subscribed love this channel man not like other reviewers with sponsored content,ads all that kind of bullsht just clean content.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks for this, and welcome aboard.

[@JonathanTash]

This video was so helpful! I just bought a portable SSD and I know I will be moving files between Windows and Linux, so I needed to make sure to use the right file system.

[@rwashi]

Hello Chris, nice to see you again, Happy Father´s day, My favorite File System is the ZFS File System it is so robust, I use it with TrueOS, I even managed to recuperate a sector damaged hard drive.

[@aleckz888]

Great video. Now it gave me better understanding when formatting drive.. OS, ssd as additional and SD cards. All the best!

[@Eddiereal]

I was thinking about this last week, thank you very much for this video, as usual you rock Chris! 🤘🏻

[@baldovincadenamejia244]

This video is amazing ! It gives a really good overview of file systems, their advantages and disadvantages. Thanks a lot for making this video. I hope I can't wait until you upload your next video.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks. I upload a new video every Sunday.

[@TP014563]

I like your videos because they are concise, well explained to a degree non-technical people can understand, and the style of fonts logos and other materials presented in 80's PC themes. Thanks a lot for the hard work you put in, keep it going.

[@sardoggy]

OMG the grafix the grafix, such a good job and so helpful in explaining so anyone can understand. Great video.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks so much!

[@lhtd]

Best explanation i've found so far. Thank you Sir !!!

[@33story.T]

You really break the knowledge of file system for easier understanding.Thank you.

[@mohd5rose]

A very informative videos as usual. Thank you very much Christopher.

[@snoopy1alpha]

Very well explained. Some more facts worth mentioning: - Journaling file systems need additional space for storing the journal - Formatting an external device with EXT2,3,4 does not work well because of user access rights (chmod 777 required but still not a good option) - Formatting an external device with NTFS used to cause problems when not safely removed on windows and attached to linux afterwards (the ntfs-tools could not fix the problem in the past) - Windows can work with FAT32-disks larger than 32GB, it just cannot create/format larger disks. As far as I know this was artificially enforced for promoting NTFS. I am not sure if there is still such a limitation. - ReiserFS contained a journal before ext3, at least it was included in the kernel earlier than ext3 - ext3 and ext4 are backward compatible and can also be mounted as ext2 (at least as far as I know; important for windows drivers)

[@Benoit-Pierre]

Mounting ext2 from external storage is tricky but there are mount option to fix your issue : users, noauto, user= , allow_other ... I have a udev script that does it automatically for me. I just plug any disk and my user can read and write it.

[@MM-wu4et]

This is the best explanation ever! and should be added as a short guide to any File System courses.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks. :)

[@anmomu92]

Very good explaination of the most popular file systems and their main characteristics. Thank you.

[@dwarf365]

Good Morning! Glad to see you and happy fathers day!

[@labibahmed7056]

I like this explanation. So fluent and understandable

[@Jopacob]

The most informative 10 minutes of my life ! Thank you

[@ExplainingComputers]

You're very welcome!

[@alexchristakis4539]

One more excellent, professional grade presentation with clear, understandable and very useful information for a very interesting issue. Many, nay thanks again!

[@marcse7en]

Wow! This guy knows his stuff! Helped me decide that I need to format my 32GB flash drive as exFat, so I can store files bigger than 4GB! Simples! 😂

[@peterhowe9688]

Great effort making this information accessible. I started using XFS for data drives years ago and that has been pretty reliable, it has journaling and it is a very performant (resource light) filesystem. I believe it is used in storage appliances from the likes of Buffalo for those reasons. Modern Linux distros handle exFAT, NTFS and HFS very well as FUSE filesystems, as ever Linux is the Swiss army knife of computing.

[@JermbearX]

Well done video, thank you for taking the time to explain the differences.

[@mrsillywalk]

Always that beautifully paced and articulate delivery.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thank you kindly!

[@galihprabasidi8498]

NTFS = New Technology File System. Engineers are very creative in naming things.

[@DTMAce]

Windows NT = Windows New Technology. Windows 2000 originally was named NT5. Then they put a facelift on Windows 98SE and called it Millennium so it looked the same. Thank god XP came out a year and half later to become the best OS for over a decade.

[@puchu9507]

Microsoft's engineers to be precise, such as their other invention "Windows orchestrator"

[@NoorquackerInd]

@@DTMAce XP is still the best software to leave Microsoft's building, *change my mind.*

[@DTMAce]

@@NoorquackerInd Never said it wasn't. But check this out: www.reactos.org/ This is what a modern XP looks like, so to speak. Enjoy.

[@FlexibleToast]

@@NoorquackerInd that's a low bar to set, but I will say OneNote is amazing.

[@mahiru20ten]

For tape drive users, there's LTFS (Linear Tape File System) which allows files in tape drives to be accessed normally like other storage medias (no more sequential access needed)

[@cinicoproducciones]

Loved how well and simply it's all explain.

[@skashax777x]

you have just inadvertently taught me why the widows ISO installation file I was trying to put on a USB to install windows on an old mac kept failing I must have used the wrong file system for the USB thank you and keep up the good work!!

[@dreamyrhodes]

Update: You can safely use ZFS for Linux as the standard system, especially when your Linux runs on a server and/or you are running it on an array. It brings more than just RAID, it's robust, the Linux port is now ported back to BSD because the Linux project has better funding for further development and you have a build in snapshot system that can be used to roll back if something gets messed up. It also can transfer data across clusters which makes it available for backup and load-balancing solutions.

[@JeanFrancoCaringi]

I really loved the experience point of view, terrific video.

[@George_K1]

This an excellent video for a quick reference on file systems.

[@legendskills29]

Thank you man I needed this!! Now i know what File System to choose and learned about other one i didn't even knew.😃❤👊🏾

[@gokhankarabulut9753]

Some additional info to your last statement: It is possible to convert FAT## volumes to NTFS (see Windows command "convert" for more info) whithout data loss if the volume serves enough free space for conversion. This is very handy when you have a >64 GB flash drive formatted with FAT32 and try to place a big file on it, it has fooled me around quite a lot ^^

[@sherridavila2948]

I formatted my SSD DRIVE for my blackmagic cinema camera ef mount. I formatted it Xfat. How do I now retrieve those videos so I can upload them to Facebook. My pc is windows 10

[@ChristopherNealBUSHIDO49ERS]

This is an excellent video! And I shared it with the Twitter world! LOL THANK YOU!!!

[@ceraz052]

Thank you for the informative and well made vid! I've been meaning to learn my file systems and you made it easy!

[@Antonio-fl3nr]

Thanks, Mr. Chris. I couldn't watch your videos for some months, and I really missed them.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Glad you are watching again now!

[@JohnMcCormack]

Perfectly explained as always, Chris. You remind me of the glory days of tech programming (in my opinion) with programmes like Tomorrow's World :)

[@martynbush3462]

Tomorrow's World was my favorite TV program. Rayment Baxter, William Wollard, Judith Hann, Michael Rodd, and many more. Black and white TV with no way of recording in the early days. That was immediately followed by Top of The Pops. Happy days.

[@JohnMcCormack]

@@martynbush3462 ah, when TOTP was good and you'd look forward to it each week to see if your preferred artist had hit number 1 :)

[@Deathrape2001]

No he left a lot of details out, like the fact NTFS is absolute $hit because if U get an error, especially on a big partition (& WTF is the point of 'journaling' if it still gets 'corrupted' with a 'bad shutdown'? LOL!) will take more than 10X longer 2 fix than FAT32. If U want 2 actually USE your PC, rather than randomly stuck with it demanding 2 spend literally DAYS (or weeks?) 2 'chkdsk' a 'big' file collection, use FAT32 =) Set the cluster size as small as reliable 4 your preferred partition sizes using the freeware 'FAT32Format' tool.

[@uzefulvideos3440]

There are also file systems with advanced features like data and metadata checksums - which allows for detection and often even prevention of bit rot - transparent compression, snapshots, ..., which none of the mentioned file systems have. Btrfs, ZFS, Bcachefs would be the more popular of those file systems.

[@Benoit-Pierre]

Few people will understand what you are talking about.

[@filiphabek271]

ZFS was mentioned, still disappointed that BTRFS wasn't.

[@raptoress6131]

That was very approachable and well put together, thank you.

[@cliffterpher]

Thanks Chris. This is precisely what I needed to know.

[@DogeMcLovin]

Aw man, just a day too late! Just cloned another HDD to SSD yesterday and I was wondering again what the differences were between all of these. Great video, nonetheless! I always love learning.

[@IDMYM8]

Best explanation yet simple enough! 😁👍

[@sns_rulz]

This is an amazing channel. Learned a ton of things… keep up the good work 👏👏👏👏

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks, will do!

[@Sihvyl]

As both a Linux and Mac user, I've never noticed a difference or a problem using ext4 for both. As far as I've experienced, there is no problem. It's fun to watch this video though. Thank you. Gosh, we all must be a different breed. Spending time watching videos about file formats...

[@Miafunfactory]

Not only that..I was in my "watch later"

[@robertfletcher3421]

I remember going back to the 1980s a friend had a Wang dedicated word processor. You had to buy floppies formatted in their system. You could not format in the machine. They cost a fortune. Another friend had a bit copier, this was a card that would copy a disk a bit at a time. Used to copy locked games. We copied a new Wang floppy writing to an ordinary disk and it did the job. The proprietary systems are amazing when one system should suffice.

[@seizuresalad91]

This video was put together really really well and is definitely a good short hand reference. Was hoping you’d cover btrfs though

[@tanvirhasanmonir1627]

Thanks a lot. I had not any before watching your video. Very informative and almost complete example and explanation of all common file system.

[@bad_leftie]

This was the most profound explanation of GPT partitioning that I've ever seen