File Systems Explained
Since FAT and variations of FAT generally do not support level-based security they are not as secure as other types. As such they are easily corruptable and have been moved away from, except in most solid-state drives. This opened the doors for a number of other files systems, especially NTFS, to become dominant.
Many people are probably wondering- how does a file system become corrupt? When a file system is being manipulated and the process is unexpectedly interrupted corruption is likely to occur. If the process had not started or had finished the file system would be fine, but something like the loss of power at a time when a change in filesystem metadata is being worked on can corrupt the file system. Because the changes where not fully made, an operating system or application cannot make sense the data which was written because it is incomplete.
Many filesystems include redundant copies of important metadata, so even if a process is interrupted an entire partition does not have to be lost. This is way when a computer is not shut down properly, the boot up will often take longer than normal- the computer must check to make sure the file system is complete. This will not always solve the problem, but as file systems becoming increasingly advanced, it is more likely that a situation can be solved without having to lose a partition or directory.
An important aspect of the file system is that of permissions. Permissions access varies based on a user's group, and it ultimately determined via the examination of the read, write, and execute (r, w, x) bits associated with a file.
This article could go on endlessly explaining the differences between each file system and the advantages of each, along with infinite minutia about the development of each, but a basic understanding is really what users need.