NetWare File System: Difference between revisions

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| compression = Yes

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| OS = [[Novell NetWare]], [[MSDOS]], [[Microsoft Windows]], and [[Linux]]

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In [[computing]], athe '''NetWare File System''' ('''NWFS''') iswas a [[file system]] based on a heavily modifiedoptimized, version ofjournal-based [[File Allocation Table|FAT]] file system. It was used in the [[Novell NetWare]] [[network operating system]]. It iswas the default and only file system for all volumes in NetWare versions 2.x, through3.x and 4.x, and the default and only file system for the SYS: volume continuing through version 5.x. Novell developed two varieties of NWFS:

# 16-bit NWFS 286, used in NetWare 2.x

# 32-bit NWFS 386, used in NetWare 3.x through NetWare 6.x.

In NetWare 5 and above, [[Novell Storage Services]] (NSS, released in 1998), superseded the NWFS format.

The NWFS on-disk format was never publicly released by Novell, but it was released by former Novell engineers as an open source project on Windows, Linux, and DOS in 2000. The project contains a complete rewrite of the NetWare File System, publishes all of the file system internals, and is hosted on [[GitHub]] and [[GitLab]].<ref name="GitLab 2024 u925">{{cite web | title=netware-file-system · GitLab | website=GitLab | date=2024-04-03 | url=https://gitlab.com/jeffmerkey/netware-file-system | access-date=2024-04-03}}</ref><ref name="GitHub 2019 m762">{{cite web | title=netware-file-system: Open Source NetWare SMP File System for Linux, Windows, and DOS | website=GitHub | date=2019-05-30 | url=https://github.com/jeffmerkey/netware-file-system | access-date=2024-04-03}}</ref>

The NWFS on-disk format was never publicly documented by Novell. The published specifications{{Citation needed|date=December 2010}} for 32-bit NWFS are:

The published specifications<ref name="GitLab 2024 u925"/> for 32-bit NWFS are:

* Maximum file size: 4 [[Gigabyte|GB]]

* Maximum volume size: 1 [[Terabyte|TB]]

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* Support for block suballocation, starting in NetWare 4.x

For larger files, the file system utilized a performance feature named ''Turbo FAT''.{{citation needed|date=May 2014}}

Transparent file compression was also supported, although this had a significant impact on the performance of file serving.

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16-bit NWFS could handle volumes of up to 256 [[Megabyte|MB]]. However, its only name-space support was a dedicated [[Application programming interface|API]] to handle Macintosh clients.

The Netware File System supported native [[Standard_RAID_levels#RAID_0|RAID 0]] and [[Standard_RAID_levels#RAID_1|RAID 1]] capabilities long before RAID systems came into use on personal computers. Disk mirroring and duplexing were basic features of the file system, and NWFS also supported multi-segmented volumes, and round-robin reads, much like RAID 0 and RAID 1 does today.

== See also ==

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* [[Comparison of file systems]]

* [[Transaction-Safe FAT File System]]

== References ==

{{Reflist}}

== External links ==