The metadata based file management system,which associated the rich metadata and file together,can effectively improve the speed of file query.However,metadata management services are independent of directory systems,making it difficult to synchronize these two systems.Based on the first principle,the bottom-up design philosophy is adopted and the files are taken as the center.The annotating file system hence is proposed,that is,the file is associated with its description information by adding annotations to the file first,so as to combine the file catalog system and metadata annotating system into one system.Annotation indicates the description of a file.Annotation file system converts directory structure information into annotation,which solves the difficulty of creating multi-class file directory and improves the efficiency of file query.Based on the number of file comparison between directory system and annotation file system,theoretical analysis and experimental verification are carried out for these two systems.The results show that annotation file system is more efficient in file query.