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FAT Technical Reference

Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1, Windows Server 2003 with SP2

FAT Technical Reference

A file system is a part of the operating system that determines how files are named, stored, and organized on a volume. A file system manages files and folders, and the information needed to locate and access these items by local and remote users. The Microsoft Windows Server 2003 operating system supports both the file allocation table (FAT) and NTFS file systems.

Some earlier Microsoft Windows operating systems, as well as removable disks and floppy disks, support only the FAT file system. For magnetic disks you should use NTFS due to its reliability to ensure metadata integrity for fast recoverability, security, compression, and encryption.

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