Design of the FAT file system

rdf:langString Design of the FAT file system

rdf:langString y

rdf:langString April 2019

rdf:langString A FAT file system is a specific type of computer file system architecture and a family of industry-standard file systems utilizing it. The FAT file system is a legacy file system which is simple and robust. It offers good performance even in very light-weight implementations, but cannot deliver the same performance, reliability and scalability as some modern file systems. It is, however, supported for compatibility reasons by nearly all currently developed operating systems for personal computers and many home computers, 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 the present. Originally designed in 1977 for use on floppy disks, FAT was soon adapted and used almost universally on hard disks throughout the DOS and Windows 9x eras for two decades. Today, FAT file systems are still commonly found on floppy disks, USB sticks, flash and other solid-state memory cards and modules, and many portable and embedded devices. DCF implements FAT as the standard file system for digital cameras since 1998. FAT is also utilized for the EFI system partition (partition type 0xEF) in the boot stage of EFI-compliant computers. For floppy disks, FAT has been standardized as ECMA-107 and ISO/IEC 9293:1994 (superseding ISO 9293:1987). These standards cover FAT12 and FAT16 with only short 8.3 filename support; long filenames with are partially patented. According to Google Patents the status of "Common name space for long and short filenames" (US5758352A) was expired in 2019, which may mean that the patent has expired completely.