My WD 80GB 8mb cache hard drive is on the way! Few questions...

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Trevelyan

Diamond Member
Dec 10, 2000
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Well, my 40 gb WD hard drive crashed and so I'm getting an 80gb SE WD hard drive...

So is this drive as good as I hear it is? Oh, and I'll be installing Windows XP... and I heard that you have to use NTFS when the drive is larger than 36Gb... is that true? Because I really dislike NTFS.... FAT32 has always been more reliable and faster for me... is there a way I can use FAT32?

Thanks!
 
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QuestionsandAnsweres

Golden Member
Jun 27, 2001
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windows xp installation i believe can only partition/format a drive in FAT32 up to 32GB. but if you partition/format it in DOS with FDISK i believe you can make it much larger.

Yes its fast. Very fast. I have the 120GB version and im very happy with it so far.
 
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Trevelyan

Diamond Member
Dec 10, 2000
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Ok, so I just make like a Windows 98SE startup disk and fdisk the drive and format it and then boot off the windows XP cd and install XP?
 
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IgoByte

Diamond Member
Jan 23, 2001
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I'm just curious what's wrong with NTFS... I use NTFS only and haven't had a single problem.
Is it true that FAT32 is in some way faster?
 
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Trevelyan

Diamond Member
Dec 10, 2000
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For me NTFS has always only caused problems... And I really don't need the added security as I'm just a home user... not being able to access my files through DOS has always just been a nuisance.
 
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Yvo

Senior member
Jan 13, 2001
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NTFS causing problems... hrm I'm not even going to ask.. but had to post it to in hope make you clarify.

NTFS adds security, yes... but it is soo much better at organizing files.

Best example I know of.

Your Windows XP based computer freezes.
FAT32: Computer starts up and wants to test your hard drive for "integrity"
NTFS: Computer starts up without a problem

Routinely (even if you shutdown your pc properly):
FAT32: Computer starts up and want to test your hard drive for "integrity" and it takes FOREVER if your files are fragmented and have a lot of data
NTFS: Computer starts up and NEVER asks for it

So if you are going to have lets say.... 60gb of data on your hard drive... hope you got a cup of coffee ready because sure you might press enter once to skip the routine test but its going to keep on asking over and over again until you perform one (and the next one is only a week away) and yes... there will be a time when you leave your computer and you forget to press enter.

So yes... your having problems with NTFS but why is it that all the home users that buy a computer off the shelf get it by default, plus your NTFS problems could have been related to your slowly dying WD drive.

It's always worth to give it another chance unless you have a Pentium 266... yes NTFS runs slowly then... but if you have a pc that is in the 1.0ghz range then you should be fine performance wise.
 
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Fulcrum

Senior member
May 9, 2002
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FAT32 has always been more reliable and faster for me...
Click to expand...

:Q

You must live in some other plane of existence or something...
rolleye.gif
 
Chumster

Chumster

Senior member
Apr 29, 2001
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Great drive - I just got mine last week (from Newegg!).

I would just like to suggest you look into NTFS again. Aside from the fact that both 2000 and XP were optimized to run on an NTFS formatted drive, there are some size concerns that you should be aware of. The cluster size of an NTFS drive formatted under XP is 4KB. The cluster size for a FAT32 drive formatted under XP increases with the size of the partition. In your case, should you format the entire drive (all 80GBs), your cluster size would be 16KB.. which can lead to some loss in disk space.

A little run down on cluster size in case the above doesn't make sense. A cluster is the smallest portion of space the OS can allocate to a file on a drive. For example, say I open Notepad, enter a line or two and save the file. While the file size is only 2.5 KB, under XP on an NTFS drive, it will take up 4KB. However, on the same FAT32 formatted drive, that file would be allocated a 16KB.

Cluster Sizes for NTFS under XP: Q314878 - The Default Cluster Size for the NTFS and FAT File Systems

Cluster Sizes for FAT32: FAT32 Cluster Size and effeciency

Hope this helps..

Chum

[edit - typo]
 
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Yvo

Senior member
Jan 13, 2001
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Chumster... good point but do keep in mind a larger cluster sized drive is "supposidly" faster.
 
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dszd0g

Golden Member
Jun 14, 2000
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Originally posted by: Yvo
Chumster... good point but do keep in mind a larger cluster sized drive is "supposidly" faster.
Click to expand...

But also wastes a ton of space for most users. In addition, NTFS is a lot better about not fragmenting the disk, but disk defragmenting is still needed occasionally (It still does not come anywhere near filesystems like ext2/3, ufs, hfs, efs, reiserfs, etc. which almost always maintain less than 2% fragmentation without any help or defragmenter).

Overall I like NTFS. What I hate about NTFS:

No free DOS read/write boot disk support (Unless anyone has any links I don't know about?)
Virus Scanning boot disks (NAV, McAfee) don't support sticking in the CD and scanning an NTFS filesystem.

All the above could be solved by Microsoft opening up the specifications on NTFS without any strings attached (NDA, etc.). Unfortunately, the Department of Justice seems to have allowed them to place NDAs which make the settlement meaningless, but that is a topic for off topic.
 
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T2T III

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
12,899
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Originally posted by: Trevelyan
Well, my 40 gb WD hard drive crashed and so I'm getting an 80gb SE WD hard drive...

So is this drive as good as I hear it is? Oh, and I'll be installing Windows XP... and I heard that you have to use NTFS when the drive is larger than 36Gb... is that true? Because I really dislike NTFS.... FAT32 has always been more reliable and faster for me... is there a way I can use FAT32?

Thanks!
Click to expand...
When you install Windows XP, it will be on NTFS. However, you can utilize Partition Magic and take it back to FAT32. This whole process should take less than 1 hour.

:) :) :) - Hey, that's my 80 GB WD "SE" drive that we're talking about. Yes, it's as good as many say it is. The drive is very quiet & very fast. :) :) :)

Regarding the drive size and limitations, you won't have any problems by keeping one partition at 80 GB. Problems are only encountered when going with drives larger than 137GB. ;) Windows XP doesn't fully support drives of this size unless you have Service Pack 1 installed - and the drive size is officially supported by your motherboard. If those conditions are met, then you'll have no problem with the 137GB and larger drives. You'll definately not have any issues with the 80 GB drive.
 
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Trevelyan

Diamond Member
Dec 10, 2000
4,077
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71
Ok geez... I didn't really everyone loved NTFS THAT much... but OK, I guess I will give it another shot. Hopefully the slowness with NTFS had to do with my dieing WD hard drive...

Thanks for the opinions all!
 
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sharkeeper

Lifer
Jan 13, 2001
10,886
2
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Regarding the drive size and limitations, you won't have any problems by keeping one partition at 80 GB. Problems are only encountered when going with drives larger than 137GB. Windows XP doesn't fully support drives of this size unless you have Service Pack 1 installed - and the drive size is officially supported by your motherboard. If those conditions are met, then you'll have no problem with the 137GB and larger drives. You'll definately not have any issues with the 80 GB drive.
Click to expand...

Really? I installed XP many times with a 440+ GB boot volume. This was last October, far before SP1. NT4.0 and 5.0 (2000) didn't seem to mind either.

Cheers!
 
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Bovinicus

Diamond Member
Aug 8, 2001
3,145
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I suggest you use NTFS. When using partitions of the size you are going to, it is a better idea. This is because NTFS is far more efficient with larger partitions (Cluster size). Therefore, performance should be faster on large partitions as well. Also, it tends to become less fragmented over time than FAT32 partitions do.
 
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Yvo

Senior member
Jan 13, 2001
458
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Originally posted by: Trevelyan
Hmmm... well it seems that NTFS is better than FAT32 all aroudn... heh, my mistake :)
Click to expand...

Meaning you tested it or you are saying that as the general opinion from the thread.

Hope we persuaded you enough lol ;)
 
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Derango

Diamond Member
Jan 1, 2002
3,113
1
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Originally posted by: kingbob
From everythin I've read NTFS is waaaaaaaaaaay faster.
Click to expand...

its not waaaaaaaaay faster. It tends to be faster, IIRC with very large partitions and larger files. Most of its benifits lay in areas that are not related to speed. Security and Reliability comes to mind. Only time I've had a file system error on NTFS was when my 75GXP was dying. When I was running fat32, There were a couple times where it just lost the FAT for absolutly no reason at all.
 
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