Developer(s) | Novell |
---|---|
Full name | NetWare File System |
Partition IDs | 0x64 (NWFS 286), 0x65 (NWFS 386), 0x66 (NWFS 386) |
Limits | |
Max volume size | 1 TB |
Max file size | 4 GB |
Features | |
Transparent compression | Yes |
Other | |
Supported operating systems | Novell NetWare, MSDOS, Microsoft Windows, and Linux |
In computing, the NetWare File System (NWFS) was a file system based on a heavily optimized, journal-based FAT file system. It was used in the Novell NetWare network operating system. It was the only file system for all volumes in NetWare versions 2.x, 3.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:
In NetWare 5 and above, Novell Storage Services (NSS, released in 1998), superseded the NWFS format.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. [1] [2]
The published specifications [1] for 32-bit NWFS are:
For larger files, the file system utilized a performance feature named Turbo FAT.[ citation needed ]
Transparent file compression was also supported, although this had a significant impact on the performance of file serving.
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 256 MB. However, its only name-space support was a dedicated API to handle Macintosh clients.
The Netware File System supported native RAID 0 and 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.
File Allocation Table (FAT) is a file system developed for personal computers and was the default filesystem for the MS-DOS and Windows 9x operating systems. Originally developed in 1977 for use on floppy disks, it was adapted for use on hard disks and other devices. The increase in disk drive capacity over time drove modifications to the design that resulted in versions: FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, and exFAT. FAT was replaced with NTFS as the default file system on Microsoft operating systems starting with Windows XP. Nevertheless, FAT continues to be commonly used on relatively small capacity solid-state storage technologies such as SD card, MultiMediaCard (MMC) and eMMC because of its compatibility and ease of implementation.
Novell, Inc. was an American software and services company headquartered in Provo, Utah, that existed from 1980 until 2014. Its most significant product was the multi-platform network operating system known as Novell NetWare. Novell technology contributed to the emergence of local area networks, which displaced the dominant mainframe computing model and changed computing worldwide.
NetWare is a discontinued computer network operating system developed by Novell, Inc. It initially used cooperative multitasking to run various services on a personal computer, using the IPX network protocol. The final update release was version 6.5SP8 of May 2009 and has been replaced by Open Enterprise Server.
IPX/SPX stands for Internetwork Packet Exchange/Sequenced Packet Exchange. IPX and SPX are networking protocols used initially on networks using the Novell NetWare operating systems. They also became widely used on networks deploying Microsoft Windows LANs, as they replaced NetWare LANs, but are no longer widely used. IPX/SPX was also widely used prior to and up to Windows XP, which supported the protocols, while later Windows versions do not, and TCP/IP took over for networking.
Btrieve is a transactional database software product. It is based on Indexed Sequential Access Method (ISAM), which is a way of storing data for fast retrieval. There have been several versions of the product for DOS, Linux, older versions of Microsoft Windows, 32-bit IBM OS/2 and for Novell NetWare.
The Apple Filing Protocol (AFP), formerly AppleTalk Filing Protocol, is a proprietary network protocol, and part of the Apple File Service (AFS), that offers file services for macOS, classic Mac OS, and Apple II computers. In OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion and earlier, AFP was the primary protocol for file services. Starting with OS X 10.9 Mavericks, Server Message Block (SMB) was made the primary file sharing protocol, with the ability to run an AFP server removed later in macOS 11 Big Sur. AFP supports Unicode file names, POSIX and access-control list permissions, resource forks, named extended attributes, and advanced file locking.
In a computer file system, a fork is a set of data associated with a file-system object. File systems without forks only allow a single set of data for the contents, while file systems with forks allow multiple such contents. Every non-empty file must have at least one fork, often of default type, and depending on the file system, a file may have one or more other associated forks, which in turn may contain primary data integral to the file, or just metadata.
Novell Storage Services (NSS) is a file system used by the Novell NetWare network operating system. Support for NSS was introduced in 2004 to SUSE Linux via low-level network NCPFS protocol. It has some unique features that make it especially useful for setting up shared volumes on a file server in a local area network.
eDirectory is an X.500-compatible directory service software product from NetIQ. Previously owned by Novell, the product has also been known as Novell Directory Services (NDS) and sometimes referred to as NetWare Directory Services. NDS was initially released by Novell in 1993 for Netware 4, replacing the Netware bindery mechanism used in previous versions, for centrally managing access to resources on multiple servers and computers within a given network. eDirectory is a hierarchical, object oriented database used to represent certain assets in an organization in a logical tree, including organizations, organizational units, people, positions, servers, volumes, workstations, applications, printers, services, and groups to name just a few.
Long filename (LFN) support is Microsoft's backward-compatible extension of the 8.3 filename naming scheme used in MS-DOS. Long filenames can be more descriptive, including longer filename extensions such as .jpeg
, .tiff
, and .html
that are common on other operating systems, rather than specialized shortened names such as .jpg
, .tif
, or .htm
. The standard has been common with File Allocation Table (FAT) filesystems since its first implementation in Windows NT 3.5 of 1994.
Open Enterprise Server (OES) is a server operating system published by OpenText. It was first published by Novell in March 2005 to succeed their NetWare product.
The NetWare Core Protocol (NCP) is a network protocol used in some products from Novell, Inc. It is usually associated with the client-server operating system Novell NetWare which originally supported primarily MS-DOS client stations, but later support for other platforms such as Microsoft Windows, the classic Mac OS, Linux, Windows NT, Mac OS X, and various flavors of Unix was added.
A NetWare Loadable Module (NLM) is a loadable kernel module that can be loaded into Novell's NetWare operating system. NLMs can implement hardware drivers, server functions, applications, system libraries or utilities.
The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of file systems.
exFAT is a file system introduced by Microsoft in 2006 and optimized for flash memory such as USB flash drives and SD cards. exFAT was proprietary until 28 August 2019, when Microsoft published its specification. Microsoft owns patents on several elements of its design.
Central Point Software, Inc. was a leading software utilities maker for the PC market, supplying utilities software for the MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows markets. It also produced Apple II copy programs. Through a series of mergers, the company was acquired by Symantec in 1994.
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GroupWise is a messaging and collaboration platform from OpenText that supports email, calendaring, personal information management, instant messaging, and document management. The GroupWise platform consists of desktop client software, which is available for Windows,, and the server software, which is supported on Windows Server and Linux.
The FAT file system is a file system used on MS-DOS and Windows 9x family of operating systems. It continues to be used on mobile devices and embedded systems, and thus is a well-suited file system for data exchange between computers and devices of almost any type and age from 1981 through to the present.