Unlike previous filesystem versions like FAT or FAT32 the NTFS (New Technology File System) is an enhanced file system offering better performances and data protection.

The NTFS filesystem was specially developed by Microsoft for the Windows NT operating system and later it proved to be supported by the newest releases of operating systems like Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and the most recent operating system Windows Vista.

In a nutshell, NTFS is one of the most reliable and secure filesystems developed by Microsoft. The base element of NTFS is the Master File Table (MFT) which is an index of all files keeping track of the contents of the NTFS volume. It is advisable to use at least a 50 MB space for a partition as the New Technology File System allocates 5 MB overhead space.

Some other main features of the NTFS filesystem are the support of long filenames, recoverable file system, protection against power outage or system failure, support for compression of files or folders, provides local security, support for spanning volumes.

There are many versions for the NTFS filesystem like:
•    v1.0
•    v1.1
•    v1.2
•    v3.0
•    v3.1
•    …..

Each new version comes with new improvements with new features from which the latest ones for Windows Vista are the Transactional NTFS and self-healing functionalities.
The new 5.0 NTFS version comes with even more features like Dynamic Disk support and Disk quotas.

For those who are working with large volume files usually video files, the NTFS offers an outstanding performance supporting file sizes up to 4GB and an increased performance of new large volume hard drives.