X-bit labs

Monday, August 29, 2005

Microsoft Makes Windows File System Beta Available. Microsoft Releases WinFS Beta 1

Microsoft has released the first beta of its Windows File System (WinFS), which has been talked about for about a decade now, for Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) subscribers. The software giant, which will not include the WinFS into its Windows Vista, describes WinFS as a revolutionary storage platform that would include schemas for everything from images and documents, to people, tasks and events.

“Beta 1 is by no means early or late. And it will still be in beta by the time Vista ships,” Quentin Clark, director of program management for WinFS, told MicrosoftWatch web-site.

Microsoft officials said Beta 1 runs on Windows XP with Service Pack (SP) 2 or “higher” releases. It does not run on Windows Server 2003, Vista Beta 1 or Longhorn Server Beta 1 though. While Vista will not include advanced file system, it will include a so-called indexing technology, which will improve search abilities of the operating system.

“We’re continuing with the indexing technology that will be part of Vista. A lot of the work done there (in Vista) was work my team and the Windows Explorer teams did. WinFS will give you more of the context. It will provide an explorable relationship between two pieces of data,” Mr. Clark noted.

“Originally the main benefit of WinFS was that you’d essentially deal with your files as an SQL database which gives a ton of flexibility in how you organize and manage data on your local, network, and Internet accessible machines,” said a software developer, who asked not to be named.

“That’s still the main benefit in my mind, but in Vista, they are making use of the NT File System’s (NTFS’s) streams – attaching keywords and such to the files – to make them much easier to index and find quickly. The limitation here is that it’s not a database really, just a faster way to find files using the traditional search techniques. The other limitation is that it's local PC only, whereas WinFS has the potential to work across a network, if you're using a WinFS-based server,” the programmer claimed.

• MicrosoftWatch: Microsoft Makes WinFS Beta 1 Bits Available.

Four SLI-Ready PSU Round-Up Posted. PSUs: Best of the Best

Pureoverclock.com has posted a comparison of four power supply units (PSUs) that are aimed at gamers and performance enthusiasts. Enermax Noisetaker 600W, PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool 510W SLI , Seasonic S12 600W and Silverstone Zeus ST65ZF 650W power PSUs are designed especially for power-hungry systems containing top-of-the-range central processing units as well as a pair of graphics cards running in a multi-GPU mode.

“It’s difficult to write a coherent conclusion to this roundup. Essentially there are two groups of power supplies in this review. The mainstream, low noise, high performance units (Seasonic S12 and Enermax Noisetaker) and the industrial class units with no consideration to noise levels, just reliable 24/7 continuous power (the Silverstone and PC Power & Cooling units),” writes the author.

“The Seasonic S12 600 simply stood out above the rest on the merit of its price/performance. Out of all the units here the S12 hits that balance like no other. It has extremely tight voltage regulation and superb power efficiency. It’s not the best looking unit here but it’s by no means ugly. If the leads were braided black I’m sure it would look as good as the PC Power & Cooling 510 SLI. It’s those twisted wires for all the connectors, they are the worst looking cables of all the units here. Another plus point that made it an easy Editors Choice is the fact that it has the lowest noise levels of all the units here which is once again due to its high power efficiency. Add to that a 3 year warranty and the little extra goodies in the box and you simply cannot go wrong buying this one! It’s a special power supply in its own right,” concludes Pureoverclock.com.

• Pureoverclock.com: SLI Ready Power Supply Roundup.