Better Utilities Improve Availability

   

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Windows Server 2003 contains enhancements to key utilities:

• CHKDSK.

  Windows Server 2003 includes improvements in CHKDSK performance that began with Windows 2000. Independent testing by eTesting Labs verifies that CHKDSK on Windows Server 2003 is 90 percent faster than on Windows NT Server 4.0 on volumes with millions of files. Beyond these improvements in CHKDSK performance, remember that one of the goals of the NTFS file system is to minimize the number of incidents in which running CHKDSK is required. NTFS is a fully journaled file system: it uses write-ahead logging (the same technique used in most databases) to ensure that its metadata is consistent, even after a crash. CHKDSK is required only when the hardware fails and corrupts the NTFS metadata.

• Disk Defragmenter.

  Windows Server 2003 also includes improvements to Disk Defragmenter. Microsoft has improved the defragmentation engine to improve performance. In Windows Server 2003, the disk defragmenter can also defragment the NTFS Master File Table (MFT).

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