ExFAT vs NTFS?

[Mixolydian]

Not really sure whether to put this here or in the Windows forum, so I'll try here.

I'm curious about this, and i can't seem to find a straight-forward answer: Which is better, ExFAT or NTFS? I understand that ExFAT is relatively new. I believe it is geared more towards external devices like flash drives and USB hard drives? What are the advantages and disadvantages for using ExFAT format on such a device?

 

[BlueWeasel]

One advantage is both PC and newer Macs can both read AND write to ExFAT drives. OSX can read NTFS partitions, but not write to them without additional drivers or software.

 

[lamedude]

AFAIK exFAT is for flash drives because it writes less data than NTFS.

 

[Nothinman]

Not really sure whether to put this here or in the Windows forum, so I'll try here.

I'm curious about this, and i can't seem to find a straight-forward answer: Which is better, ExFAT or NTFS? I understand that ExFAT is relatively new. I believe it is geared more towards external devices like flash drives and USB hard drives? What are the advantages and disadvantages for using ExFAT format on such a device?

NTFS because it supports a ton more features in security and reliability. ExFAT is just an extension of an already shitty filesystem and its only redeeming factor is compatibility which isn't even that great given the extensions MS added.

 

[mikeymikec]

exFAT IIRC also has a couple of limitations like how long a file path can be.

 

[BFG10K]

exFAT was designed specifically for flash drives. It has a lower file system overhead and also less writes because it doesn’t journal. So not only will you save space, write speeds on flash drives are faster with exFAT than NTFS (from my own testing).

Use exFAT on flash drives and NTFS everywhere else.

 

[Nothinman]

exFAT IIRC also has a couple of limitations like how long a file path can be.

I'll bet Explorer's path limit is significantly less than whatever it is, just like with NTFS.

 

[Mixolydian]

Interesting, thanks guys!

 

[bononos]

I formatted all my flash drives >4gb with ntfs. I figured there wasn't much difference and wanted more compatibility.
http://blog.testfreaks.com/information/usb-flash-drive-comparison-part-2-fat32-vs-ntfs-vs-exfat/

 

[GAO]

I think exFATwas less designed for performance but rather for capacity. FAT32 has a file size limit of 4GB and is limited to disks of 2TB or less. exFAT has a file size limit of 16 Exabytes and a disk size limit of 128 Petbytes. exFAT performs better than FAT32 on large volumes. exFAT and FAT32 is fully supported on Mac OS.

NTFS is more reliable and robust than any FAT system. Use exFAT for flash drives or external drives. if you have a device that does not support exFAT, like say a camera, then use FAT32. For everything else use NTFS.