Using default native file systems, ext4 and NTFS, we found that Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 outperformed Windows Server 2012 by as much as 65.2 percent out-of-the-box, and as much as 33.4 percent using optimized configurations. Using the IOzone Filesystem Benchmark in our tests, we found I/O performance of file systems on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 was better than the file systems available on Microsoft Windows Server 2012, with both out-of-the-box and optimized configurations. Understanding how your choice of operating system affects file system I/O performance can be extremely valuable as you plan your infrastructure.