Windows 2000 Server and the NTFS file system represent the best solution for the enterprise customer. At the physical level, NTFS supports junction points, sparse files, distributed link tracking, and a volume change log. Windows 2000 Server also provides complete content indexing of the file system, hierarchical storage management. A major new feature in Windows 2000 Server is dynamic volume management. This allows for live configuration changes without requiring a server reboot. Windows 2000 Server also provides a powerful and full-featured suite of tools for backup, restore, and disaster recovery. It also supports all three of the latest developments in next-generation storage technologies – I2O, IEEE 1394, and Fiber Channel. Finally, Windows 2000 Server Distributed File System (DFS) provides for integrated load balancing, fault tolerance, and replication services – features that are unmatched by either Solaris 7 or Windows NT Server 4.0.
In terms of functionality, the Windows NT Server 4.0 implementation falls behind that of Windows 2000 Server and Solaris 7. When compared with Windows 2000 Server, Windows NT Server 4.0 falls short by not offering Fiber Channel, IEEE 1394, I2O, dynamic volume management, hierarchical storage management, removable storage management, disk quotas, junction points, sparse files, distributed link tracking, complete content indexing, and a volume change log. As Solaris 7 almost matches the feature set of Windows 2000 in this regard (though lacking such features as built-in file compression and disk defragmentation support), it provides a superior environment to Windows NT 4.0. The DiskSuite 4.2 tool used to manage and configure drive configuration and utilization is one of the few complete tools in Solaris 7 that provides a high level of integrated usability in terms of management and configuration. Unfortunately, however, DiskSuite is no longer bundled with the server. Also, although IEEE support is provided on the Solaris for Intel platform, there are no actual 1394 devices supported at this time.
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