Major filesystems
| Filesystem | Max file | Max volume | Journaling | Primary platform |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FAT32 | 4 GiB | 2 TiB | No | Windows legacy, SD cards |
| exFAT | 128 PiB | 128 PiB | No | SD cards / cross-platform |
| NTFS | 16 EiB (spec) | 16 EiB | Yes | Windows |
| HFS+ | 8 EiB | 8 EiB | Yes | macOS legacy |
| APFS | 8 EiB | 8 EiB | CoW | macOS / iOS |
| ext4 | 16 TiB | 1 EiB | Yes | Linux default |
| XFS | 8 EiB | 8 EiB | Yes | Linux servers / big storage |
| Btrfs | 16 EiB | 16 EiB | CoW | Linux (SUSE default) |
| ZFS | 16 EiB | 256 ZiB | CoW | FreeBSD, Illumos, Linux (OpenZFS) |
| ReFS | 16 EiB | 35 PB | CoW | Windows Server |
| F2FS | 16 TiB | 16 TiB | Yes | Android / flash-optimized |
Features
| Feature | ext4 | NTFS | APFS | Btrfs | ZFS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Snapshots | No | Yes (VSS) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Transparent compression | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Built-in encryption | ext4 ecryptfs | EFS/BitLocker | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| RAID | No | Soft RAID | No | Yes | Yes |
| Deduplication | No | Yes (Win Server) | No | Yes (experimental) | Yes |
| Checksums | No | No | Meta only | Yes | Yes |
Notes
- Copy-on-Write (CoW) filesystems write new blocks rather than overwriting — enables snapshots cheaply but can fragment.
- For maximum cross-OS compatibility (incl. macOS + Windows), use exFAT.
- ZFS needs RAM — plan for ~1 GB RAM per 1 TB storage for good cache performance.
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