Quick Question: NTFS or FAT32?...

[TheyCallMeSAK]

P3 700mHz
192Mb PC100
IMB 9GB 7200 U2SCSI (Boot Disk)
(2) Maxtor DM+ 7200 (for storage)

I'm starting with a fresh install of Windows 2000 Pro on the SCSI boot disk. I'm wondering what performance differences and all-around pros and cons of NTFS vs. FAT32. What should I use on my boot disk? The 2 storage drives are currently FAT32. I can leave them, or transfer files and switch to NTFS. It is worth it if the performance is better with NTFS.

I'm just not sure which file system to use. If anyone could quickly give me facts and/or opinions, I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks ahead of time. I will try to install tonight. NEED YOUR HELP on which file system

 

[jmcoreymv]

In my opinion if your not in a secure environment, stick with Fat32. Also, if you ever connect a win98/95 pc im pretty sure it cant read ntfs volumes so thats another reason to go with fat. Im sure someone will add in more details.

 

[TheyCallMeSAK]

This is kind of a workstation that doesn't require too much security. What I really want is PERFORMANCE. Will NTFS give me better performance? Access, Transfer, etc.

 

[TheyCallMeSAK]

Itching to install. What do I do. Please help

Bump^^^^^

 

[bigshooter]

Check out www.storagereview.com . They do comparisons like that, not sure about IBM drives, but I know Maxtor's rock in NTFS. My computer seems a little faster with NTFS instead of FAT32 in 2000, but it might be the fact that I just reformatted and got rid of all the junk that was on there.

 

[SuperFreaky]

I think I read this at Tweak3d.com, but couldn't find the article just now... anyhow!

The fastest setup would be to have 2 seperate partitions... one NTFS and only have the operating system running off this, and the other FAT32 and have everything else on this.

 

[John]

Real world performance differences between fat32 and ntfs will typically be seen only in benchmarks.

If you have mutiple PC's running Win9x on a network or a slave HDD with fat32 then I would go fat32 also. Otherwise ntfs should do the trick.

 

[yazz]

jmcoreymv....
win9x can read a NTFS partition over a network. win9x cannot mount a NTFS disk physically--that is what you probably meant, mjcoreymv.

TheyCallMeSAK....

i say make a 2gig fat16 partition for your win2000. just in case you need to go down to DOS with a boot disk. and make the rest of your system NTFS. NTFS is just a little faster than fat32, in my opinion. you will get more harddrive space with NTFS 5. but, in your case i would stay with your fat32 storage drives. too much hassle to transfer files back and forth.

 

[TheyCallMeSAK]

Hehe. Thanks a lot, all of you. Il go with NTFS for my boot disk. I'm sure it will rock. Quite a response off this. Thanks again.

I guess my Bump^^^^^

did the trick

 

[Vincent]

Actually I think NTFS is slower than FAT32 because NTFS has a lot more features than FAT32. All FAT32 does is tell you where your files and directories are stored. But NTFS takes care of all kinds of things like security and some degree of fault tolerance.

 

[Sunner]

Unless you have any specific reason not to, go with NTFS.
Reasons I can think of would be for dual booting, or if you wanna hook the disk up to a Win9x comp sometime.
NTFS is moer secure, is far less prone to fragmentation, and has more features, its also suffers far less from corruption than FAT16/32.