NetWare File System: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 23:33, 31 December 2009

Revision as of 22:52, 1 February 2010

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'''NetWare File System''' ('''NWFS'''), is a [[file system]], based on a heavily-modified version of [[File Allocation Table|FAT]]. It was used in the [[Novell NetWare]] [[operating system]]. It is the default and only file system for all volumes in versions 2.x through 4.x, and the default and only file system for the SYS volume continuing through version 5.x. There were two varieties of NWFS: 16-bit NWFS 286, used in NetWare 2.x; and 32-bit NWFS 386, used in NetWare 3.x through NetWare 6.x. It was superseded by the release of [[Novell Storage Services]] (NSS) in 1998.

The NWFS on-disk format was never publicly documented by Novell. The published specifications for 32-bit NWFS are:

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Every name space requires its own separate directory entry for each file. While the maximum number of directory entries is 16,000,000, two resident name spaces would reduce the usable maximum number of directory entries to 8,000,000, and three to 5,333,333.

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

== See also ==