Coexistence of multiple, active file systems in a single PC
Multiple logical volumes (partitions)
Multiple and different storage devices
Redirection or connection to remote file systems
File system flexibility in managing its data and I/O for optimal performance
Transparency at both the user and application level
Standard set of File I/O
API
Existing logical file and directory structure
Existing naming conventions
File system doing its own buffer management
File system doing file I/O without intermediate buffering
Extensions to the Standard File I/O
API (FSCTL)
Extensions to the existing naming conventions
IOCTL type of communication between a file system and a device driver