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NTFS vs Fat32

B

boatillo

Senior member
I've always gone Fat32 as that was the only option pretty much when I started formatting drives, why NTFS?

I run a 40gig 7200rpm single drive.
 
No compelling reason for either, though NTFS is supposedly a little more reliable.

If you really care, try using Advanced Search to find archived threads on this, there have been several long ones here and in OS.
 
For a home desktop, the main advantage of NTFS (which I should have thought to mention since I just got my Hauppage PVR card today) is it doesn't have the 4GB file size limit of FAT32 -- this limit can be a problem on FAT32 for recording high-quality video, especially lossless, and for authoring DVDs.

Otherwise, I stand by "no compelling reason" to care which one you have for home use, though those are good links to help boatillo decide. I'd pick NTFS for a new install, but wouldn't feel bad about running Win2000 or XP on FAT32 if the drive was already formatted that way.
 
Great info thanks guys

I did do an advanced search for the topic after you suggested it and found those exact links but for some reason they didn't work on the other thread - good thing they do here!
 
Yeah NTFS has much better security features than FAT32, but for the average home user that doesn't exactly matter. It is supposed to be slightly more reliable, and it is nice enough to store an extra copy of your MBR (NTFS version of a FAT table) in the center of the drive in case the first one gets corrupted. (Unlike various versions of Linux and Unix, which store over a dozen copies of the file tables in different locations on the drive and automatically compare and fix them if neccessary. But with Windows we're just fortunate to get a backup at all.)

And just for an added bit of trivia, NTFS for WinXP/2k/2k3 is actually NTFS 5. The original (released) NTFS (4) was for NT 4.0.

EDIT--

And just as a side note, something that might affect a home user with NTFS is the fact that you can not have an NTFS volume if you are doing a dual-boot with any version of Windows 9x/Me.
 
Ive ran my pc on both. Until around 6 months ago, I hadnt even heard of NTFS :S

I run NTFS now because once I get my PVR-250 back off Hauppage, I can record long TV clips at nice quality. The 4 Gb file size limit on FAT32 may lead some football matches to be unfortunately cropped.
 
4gb limit is a major issue for fat32 even for common home users. You'll quickly eat up that much space while backing up a dvd archive or doing any meaningful video captures from television or your camcorder.
 
the only reason I would ever say use FAT32 is if you are running Win9x, and in that case you would be better off not using a PC.
 
Originally posted by: Gothgar
the only reason I would ever say use FAT32 is if you are running Win9x, and in that case you would be better off not using a PC.
Click to expand...

Nice summary. 🙂

 
Originally posted by: jbrownos
Yeah NTFS has much better security features than FAT32, but for the average home user that doesn't exactly matter. It is supposed to be slightly more reliable, and it is nice enough to store an extra copy of your MBR (NTFS version of a FAT table) in the center of the drive in case the first one gets corrupted. (Unlike various versions of Linux and Unix, which store over a dozen copies of the file tables in different locations on the drive and automatically compare and fix them if neccessary. But with Windows we're just fortunate to get a backup at all.)

And just for an added bit of trivia, NTFS for WinXP/2k/2k3 is actually NTFS 5. The original (released) NTFS (4) was for NT 4.0.

EDIT--

And just as a side note, something that might affect a home user with NTFS is the fact that you can not have an NTFS volume if you are doing a dual-boot with any version of Windows 9x/Me.
Click to expand...

Wrong! I have been using a machine all this week that was triple booting win98, win2k, and winxp. It was partitioned as follows. fat32 primary C: partition win98 OS, NTFS Primary D: partition win2k, NTFS Primary E: partition winXP Pro, NTFS Extended partion 1 logical drive F: for Data. Obviously when booted into win98 the D, E, and F partitions are not accessible but you absolutely can have NTFS partitions when dual booting with win9x as long as you are doing it as a basic disc. You cannot do it if it is a dynamic disc.

That being said the security features especially in an environment with shared disc resources make NTFS far and away the better file system as compared to FAT file systems which basically have no local security and very limited shared resource security and features.
 
Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
For a home desktop, the main advantage of NTFS is it doesn't have the 4GB file size limit of FAT32 -- this limit can be a problem on FAT32 for recording high-quality video, especially lossless, and for authoring DVDs.
Otherwise, I stand by "no compelling reason" to care which one you have for home use
Click to expand...
Ditto.

I was thinking, what if someone were to take the FAT32 system DLLs, and patch out the 4GB filesize limitation in them... Hmm. (Possibly might have to patch common compilier shared runtim-lib DLLs too.)
If you think about it, there's no reason why any one file in FAT32 can't have a nearly-infinite-length FAT32 cluster-chain, they are terminated by a flag-value once you reach the end. The only real issues are the storage of the actual file length in the directory entries, and the filesystem APIs that limit file access to 4GB sizes. Since NT-based OSes internally use 64-bit values for file-size APIs (which is required for supporting greater than 4GB files on filesystems like NTFS and servers), then it would seem that it wouldn't be all that difficult to patch the FAT32 driver to remove the biggest limitation. (Assuming that there are some spare bits *somewhere* in those LFN directory entries.)

Sounds like a fun project to me, when I get some spare time. 🙂

Note that these "FAT32-XTRA" (my name for it) filesystem volumes, would *not* allow access to 4GB+ files on Win9x OSes, they don't have any internal 64-bit filesize support.
 
Originally posted by: boatillo
I've always gone Fat32 as that was the only option pretty much when I started formatting drives
Click to expand...
There was FAT16 before FAT32 with NT & 2000 using NTFS.

 
Originally posted by: Blain
Originally posted by: boatillo
I've always gone Fat32 as that was the only option pretty much when I started formatting drives
Click to expand...
There was FAT16 before FAT32 with NT & 2000 using NTFS.
Click to expand...

NTFS and be done with it as FAT Momma is seeing her grave 😉
 
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