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NTFS or FAT32?

K

konichiwa

Lifer
I'm about to format a drive that will be used for OS and Programs/Games...maybe some storage if there's space left over (heh) a 30GB IBM 75GXP.

Should I do NTFS or FAT32 and why?
 
fat 32..
i have used bolth extensivly, and havent noticed a difference. if you format in NTFS, than you can use a boot disk or boot off the win98 cd rom if something were to happen to you computer to fix/get files off of it. right now, my 2k partition is formated in NTFS, and it is a pain. i dual boot with 98, and it is hard to swap files back and forth because 98 cant read NTFS.

do what ya want, but i would go with fat 32.

- Jason
 
Will it just be one partition? (I'm assuming your putting on NT4 or Win2k).

If you had 2 partitions, you could set up something like 25-28 as NTFS and 3-5 as FAT32 so you can do drive backups, and backup files. Most imaging software I've used wont read NTFS partitions. (unless I don't know how to set them up properly)
 
NTFS is used mostly for security issues. In the corporate world some people need access to certain files and others don't. SysAdmins use NTFS to allow some users access and others none.

For home use use FAT32
 
I personally think NTFS is better. First off it is less susceptible to fragmentation than FAT file systems. Additionally, the security is actually useful. What if you have files that you don't want people who have logon accounts to have access to? You can even lock out files from other administrators if you take ownership of them.
 
Exactly HaVoC! I don't want anyone screwing with my files! With FAT32 you have NO security. But if security is not an issue for you, then FAT32 will do just fine.
 
NTFS is also less prone to corruption than FAT16/23 is.
Though NTFS5 seems far less reliable than NTFS4 to me, Ive had a total of 3 drives corrupted from dirty unmounts while Ive had no NTFS4 corruptions for this reason.
 
as everyone stated before, NTFS is suited for security where fat 16/32 is not. I run NTFS (win2k) and love it... its clean, fast, and reliable (to me at least). Fat just doesnt do it for me... in the end it depends on what you want to do, if this is your computer and no one will touch it other than you, fat is ok...
 
There is a program called NTFS DOS that will allow you to read NTFS from DOS/Win9X, but you still wouldn't be able to boot from an NTFS drive since the OS must be running for it to load.
 
NTFS unless you are going to be dual booting with Win 98 or ME. As I believe the current program that allows access to NTFS drives from Win me doesnt support writing and also it is quite slow.
 
Well, I've done the whole NTFS and the FAT32 routes, and to me it's made little to no difference. Although NTFS is better in my mind. If you dont care about security or slight/almost no performance increase and want it to share with win98, then FAT32. If you're just going to do Win2k, then I dont see the harm in NTFS, unless you destablilize it and have to start over from scratch 🙁 then it's a hastle to redo everything on a NTFS formatted drive, while with FAT32 it's easy.... the choice is personal, dual, I'd go FAT, just win2k I would have a hard time deciding, but I think I would go with NTFS....
 
One thing I don't like about any of the FATs is the 2GB file limit, which NTFS doesn't have. Of course, if you don't know what DivX or "FlaskMPEG" is, that won't apply to you. I looooove my 20GB NTFS partition. 😉
 
I was expecting someone to read what I said and think the wrong thing.

I am talking about a maximum file size limit, not partition limit.

That's why I added that if you didn't do DVD-ripping, you wouldn't understand why that was important. 😉

BoberFett is correct. FAT32 = crap.

Let's not forget that at the StorageReview.com, they've found that NTFS is faster than FAT32 under Windows 2k.

 
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