Editing NTFS (section)

=== Sparse files ===
[[File:Sparse file (en).svg|thumb|A sparse file: Empty bytes don't need to be saved, thus they can be represented by [[metadata]].]]
[[File:One Petabyte of Files (Windows 10 Professional).png|thumb|One [[petabyte]] (1,125,899,906,842,624 bytes) of sparse files, 0 bytes on disk.]]

[[Sparse file]]s are files interspersed with empty segments for which no actual storage space is used. To the applications, the file looks like an ordinary file with empty regions seen as regions filled with zeros; the file system maintains an internal list of such regions for each sparse file.<ref>{{cite web|title=Sparse Files|url=https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/fileio/sparse-files|website=[[Microsoft Learn]]|publisher=[[Microsoft]]|access-date=25 January 2025|date=7 January 2021}}</ref> A sparse file does not necessarily include sparse zeros areas; the "sparse file" attribute just means that the file is allowed to have them.

Database applications, for instance, may use sparse files.<ref>{{cite web|last=Kandoth|first=Suresh B.|title=Sparse File Errors: 1450 or 665 due to file fragmentation: Fixes and Workarounds|url=http://blogs.msdn.com/b/psssql/archive/2009/03/04/sparse-file-errors-1450-or-665-due-to-file-fragmentation-fixes-and-workarounds.aspx|work=CSS SQL Server Engineers|publisher=[[Microsoft]]|access-date=21 October 2013|date=4 March 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131021122654/http://blogs.msdn.com/b/psssql/archive/2009/03/04/sparse-file-errors-1450-or-665-due-to-file-fragmentation-fixes-and-workarounds.aspx|archive-date=21 October 2013|url-status=dead}}</ref> As with compressed files, the actual sizes of sparse files are not taken into account when determining quota limits.<ref>{{cite web|title=Sparse Files and Disk Quotas|url=https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/fileio/sparse-files-and-disk-quota|website=[[Microsoft Learn]]|publisher=[[Microsoft]]|access-date=25 January 2025|date=15 August 2023}}</ref>