Optimizing Win2000 NTFS System

When installing Windows 2000, what choice do users need to make is to use FAT32 file system or NTFS file system? This is actually a very simple problem. There is only one reason for not choosing the NTFS file system. That is, you need to use an operating system that cannot read the N TFS partition, such as Win9x, MS-DOS, etc.

Introduction to NTFS

NTFS is an abbreviation for "New Technology File System". Microsoft introduced the NTFS file system to compensate for some of the shortcomings of the FAT file system. The biggest improvement is fault tolerance and security.

Fault Tolerance

NTFS can automatically fix disk errors without displaying an error message. When Windows 2000 writes a file to an NTFS partition, it keeps a copy of the file inside, and then checks if the file written to the disk is consistent with the one in the memory. If the two are inconsistent, Windows marks the corresponding sector as a bad sector and no longer uses it (cluster remapping), and then rewrites the file to disk with a copy of the file retained in memory. If an error occurs while reading the file, NTFS returns a read error message and informs the corresponding application that the data has been lost.

Security

NTFS has many security options that protect files and directories on this machine and remotely. NTFS also supports Encrypting File System (EFS), which prevents unauthorized users from accessing files.

File Compression

Another benefit of the NTFS file system is support for file compression, which allows users to choose to compress a single file or an entire folder.

Disk Quota

The Disk Quota feature allows system administrators to manage the disk space allocated to individual users. Legitimate users can only access their own files. The disk quota feature in Windows 2000 is based on users. And the volume.

Second, optimize the performance of NTFS

Users can determine a number of factors affecting the performance of NTFS volumes, more important are the type of NTFS volume (SCSI or IDE), speed (disk RPM), The number of disks that the volume contains, and so on. In addition to the above factors, the following factors can also affect the performance of N TFS volumes:

· The size of clusters and space allocation units.

· Whether the volume is created directly or converted from a FAT volume.

· Does the volume use NTFS compression.

· Fragments and locations in frequently accessed files. For example, the main file table (MFT), directories, files containing data frequently used by NTFS, buffer files, and frequently used user files.

Size of the cluster

Select the size of the cluster based on the average size and type of files to be stored on the NTFS volume. Ideally, the size of the cluster should be such that the file size (the closest value) is divisible. The ideal cluster size minimizes I/O time and maximizes disk space. It should be noted that the use of clusters larger than 4KB in any case will have the following negative effects:

·Disk Defragmenter cannot organize this volume

·Cannot use NTFS files Compression function

·Waste of disk space increase

There are several ways to determine the average size of a file. One way is to select "Run" from the "Start" button. Type cmd in the box, click OK, and then execute c hkdsk in the command line mode to remove the used disk space by the number of files on this volume. Another way is to use Performance Monitor. The method is Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Performance, and then track the average disk bytes /transfers of logical disk objects, using this method to get more accurate file size and storage The type of data on this volume.

NTFS Converted from FAT

Volumes converted from FAT to NTFS will lose some of the performance benefits of NTFS. MFT may be fragmented and NTFS file access permissions cannot be set on the root volume.

To check for fragmentation on the MFT, use the following method: Start -> Programs -> Attachments -> System Tools -> Disk Defragmentation, analyze a drive, then click " View the report", use the mouse to scroll to the M FT fragment.

After converting a FAT volume to NTFS, the cluster size is 512 bytes, which increases the possibility of fragmentation and takes more time to defragment. For the above reasons, it is best to format the hard disk into an NTFS file system at the time of initial formatting.

NTFS File Compression

The NTFS compression feature compresses the entire directory tree on a single file, an entire folder, or an NTFS volume. Using compression will cause performance degradation of NTFS volumes because each time you access a compressed file, you need to decompress it. If you want to copy a compressed file, the process is: decompress, copy, and re-compress the copied file, which greatly increases the processing time of the CPU. It should be noted that NTFS compression is more efficient on Windows 2000 Professional than on Windows 2000 Server.

Files, folders, and NTFS volumes can be compressed in the properties dialog of the browser window.

Defragmentation

When fragmentation occurs on a disk, the head needs more movement when accessing a file, which has a significant adverse effect on performance. Keeping the fragmentation on the disk at a low level is the most important factor in improving the performance of the N TFS volume. You can run the defragmentation tool frequently to do this.

Windows 2000's Disk Defragmentation Tool allows you to quickly analyze a volume and suggest to you if you need to organize this volume.

Disabling non-essential NTFS functions

- Creating short file names is prohibited. In order to maintain compatibility with MS-DOS and Windows 3.x, NTFS also supports file names in 8.3 format. If you do not want to support these systems, go to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE SYSTEM CurrentControlSet Control FileSystem in the registry and change the value of NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation from 0 to 1.

· Prohibit recent access updates. When switching back and forth between directories, NTFS will update the date/time stamp of the most recently accessed directory. On a larger NTFS volume, it will degrade the performance of the N TFS volume. In the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE SYSTEM CurrentControlSet Control FileSystem, the value of NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate is changed from 0 to 1, so that the automatic update function can be disabled. If there is no such entry, it is added to the registry.

Reserve the appropriate space for the main file table (MFT). MFT plays an important role in NTFS volumes, which has a great impact on its performance. When the system allocates space and reads and writes disks, it frequently accesses M FT. Therefore, MFT has a crucial impact on the performance of NTFS volumes. Developers of the NTFS file system reserve a specific area near the MFT to reduce fragmentation in the MFT. By default, this area accounts for 2.5% of the entire volume size, although this area can make fragments in the MFT. The least, but it is not always appropriate. To manage the MFT space, you can add a NtfsMftZoneReservation of type REG_DWORD to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE SYSTEM CurrentControlSet Control FileSystem. Its default value is 1, and its range is 1-4 (1 means MFT accounts for 12.5% ​​of the entire volume, 2 Indicates 2 5%, 3 means 37.5%, and 4 means 50%).

The registry must be changed before the NTFS volume is created. The modification to the registry only affects the NTFS volumes created afterwards, and has no effect on the existing volumes. These volumes will also maintain the original MF T settings. Allocating more space to the MFT does not affect the normal storage space, because once the normal file storage space is full, NTFS will use the MFT area, which sometimes causes the MFT area to be more susceptible to fragmentation. Therefore, we must pay attention to the storage space occupied by the user files, and reserve a certain amount of free space on the volume, so that M FT can have enough reserved space.

Regarding the setting of NtfsMftZoneReservation, its default 12.5% ​​setting is sufficient for most users. Take my usage as an example. The size of the MFT is 74, 3 31 KB. There are about 73,000 files on this volume, and the average file size is 111 KB. Since the size of the volume is 9GB, the reserved space of the MFT is 1152MB, which is enough.