See also: Filesystems | VFAT
Acronym: File Allocation Table
An ancient non-journaling file system still used in many Windows machines. Notably, it is inefficient at handling small files. Its successor on Windows is NTFS, which includes journaling and per-file security attributes and very basic encryption.
There 3 types of FAT filesystems:
- FAT12 – used in DOS floppies
- FAT16 – for 16 bit systems, including Windows 3.1 and MS DOS 6.22
- FAT32 – A 32-bit filesystem commonly used by the Windows 9x series of operating systems. It uses a lookup table to store filenames and file locations. Partitions can only be split into a table of so many files, which means that on large hard drives very small files can use up to 8,192 bytes each.
VFAT
Acronym: Virtual File Allocation Table
A hack (add-on) of the original FAT to include longer filenames in FAT12/16/32.
Related
Links
TakeDown.NET -> “FAT”