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fat16 vs. fat 32

M

Mountain

Senior member
is one actually "faster" than the other? or is this a stupid question or maybe a question revealing my stupidity?
 
Strictly speaking FAT16 is faster than FAT32 in certain situations. But in terms of support for partition sizes and efficiency, you should use FAT32 unless the partition is less than 512MB.
 
"The only stupid question, is the question that was not asked"

OK, that was the lecture. 😉

I imagine FAT32 being a tad bit slower than FAT16, as it has a bit more overhead to carry along, but i think its negliable. However, keep in mind that the maximum partition size with FAT16 is 2GB, and with the 2GB it uses 32KB clusters. I dont think 2GB partitions is very useful anymore in todays world where diskspace is so cheap and programs grow so huge.
 
IMHO there is no performance difference... the only difference is FAT16 is a WIN3.1/95 legacy and can only work in 128 kbyte blocks (bear with me with the numbers... I may be wrong), whereas FAT32 can work with 16 kbyte blocks... thus making FAT32 heaps more efficient when it comes to handling HDD resources. If you're on FAT16 on Win98, ME or 2000 (I saw FAT16 on 2000 just the other day), then change ASAP
 
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