NTFS idea from the WIN7 era

I think it is simple (not very simple) and at the same time an extremely good idea. Ah, false modesty, who needs you …

DBJ NTFS variant, with MFT on the spindle side

MFT. It is all about the MFT file. A “feature” of the, otherwise very good, NTFS. By now a good old, file system of Windows. Invented for NT 3.51. (Wow, that was a long time ago!)

Here it is: change W7 NTFS so that the MFT file is always created from the END of the disk! Not from the TOP! Avoid mixing MFT and all the other files, as it is the case now. Today if MFT is fragmented tough luck. Defrag tools can not touch it. You have to use the special MFT defrag tool and even worse, you have to reboot to defrag the MFT file.

This way MFT file will almost always stay in one piece, it will not be fragmented on 99.9% of machines running W7. Automagically W7 NTFS will be faster and more resilient.  Simply W7 NTFS will create MFT and place it on the END of the disk when it installs itself.

MFT on the standard NTFS can be defragmented only before login happens. In the twilight zone of the blue screen only. True, there are tools for MFT defragmenting. But they are never used by 99.9% of the population and more importantly professionals are not rebooting their data centers just to be able to defrag the MFT!

W7 server will be extremely popular if NTFS will have MFT which is never fragmented. Of course, ALL the other W7 NTFS system files could be located at the END of the disk, at the safe distance from standard files, and thus most likely kept in one piece each. Paging file (of a fixed size), hibernation file, etc … No defrag of W7 NTFS system files needed (almost) !

Regards …

Believe it or not: This post was first published on 12 November 2008.