USB Flash Drives: FAT32 or NTFS?

[Ken90630]

I know this has been discussed before, but I just want to revisit the issue briefly to make sure I understand the considerations.

Assuming I won't ever need to use a flash drive on a pre-Windows 2000 PC, nor any non-Windows computer, is there any reason not to reformat my flash drives to NTFS for better data stability & performance?

FAT32 would be fine in that I don't anticipate saving any files > 4GB to my flash drives, but it's always been my understanding that NTFS is a much superior file system.

I also understand that NTFS has more overhead and thus reduces the capacity of the drive, but how significant is that overhead? Are we talking a MB or two here, or tens of MBs, or ???

My flash drives are typically between 4 and 8GBs, if it matters.

Oh, and do flash drives ever require defragging?

 

[VirtualLarry]

ntfs and removable issometimes a bad idea.

 

[LokutusofBorg]

NTFS prevents easy plug-n-play, and will wear out the drive faster, I believe. No defragging required.

 

[Auric]

exFAT is the SD standard (beginning with XC) and can be used where NTFS is not required for compatability (i.e. NMT and such media players). FAT32 is really only good for the furtherst backwards compatability (i.e. DOS) and of course where large files will not be used.

 

[RebateMonger]

I format all new USB drives to NTFS. It sucks when folks try to copy a 4 GB file to to the disk or flash drive and can't figure out why they don't have permission to do the copy. The time wasted in getting this figured out probably far outweighs any negative effects.

 

[corkyg]

Sometimes it depends on the size of the drive and the use. I have several small USB flash drives (4GB) that must be bootable. Some bootable apps require FAT32. Also, for small drives, NTFS imposes significant space for overhead activities. I don't format NTFS unless the drive is 8GB or more.

 

[babcom]

For upgrading the bios from a flash drive, the motherboard makers insist that the drive be FAT format only.

 

[Ross Ridge]

Assuming I won't ever need to use a flash drive on a pre-Windows 2000 PC, nor any non-Windows computer, is there any reason not to reformat my flash drives to NTFS for better data stability & performance?

FAT32 would be fine in that I don't anticipate saving any files > 4GB to my flash drives, but it's always been my understanding that NTFS is a much superior file system.

NTFS doesn't perform any better than FAT32 for most applications. Unless you're putting 1000s of files into single directory or maybe deleting dozens of files a second, you'll get better performance, at least in theory, with FAT32 or exFAT simply because those filesystems don't have to do all those permission checks. However, in practice you're not likely see measurable difference between filesystems. The one possible exception would be larger block sizes that FAT32 forces you to use can improve performance, but I don't know if that would apply to a flash device. In any case you can always format with a larger block size with NTFS as well.

NTFS also doesn't do anything to protect your data. It has journaling, but it only journals it's own meta-data, and that only protects it against things like the power being suddenly removed, not your media going bad.

Personally, I'd use FAT32 or exFAT. Probably FAT32 because at some point you'll probably want to use the drive with something that only supports FAT32.

And, no, you don't want to defragment a USB flash drive. You're just going to wear it out more.

 

[Ken90630]

Glad I asked. You guys mentioned some things I hadn't thought of. Thanks for the replies, everyone.

 

[Mark R]

The advantages of using NTFS:
Huge(>4GB) file support (v. Useful for moving ISO images or media files)
Marginally improved stability in case of unclean removal (less prompting for disk scanning)
Can use transparent compression (can actually be faster than uncompressed as getting data on to the stick is the bottleneck)
Support for NTFS sub-streams (essentially a 2nd file within a file). Some, very rare apps do store data in the substream, this data is lost if the file is copied to FAT. Explorer also uses this to store 'summary data' on files (you can find this in the file properties window). I once annotated a bunch of files this way, and lost the annotations because I didn't understand substreaming.

Disadvantages
Reduced compatability with non-windows OSs and BIOS tools
Can theoretically set inappropriate permissions which may make files inaccessible except on 1 machine (can only happen if you change the defaults)

Personally, I use NTFS unless there is a good reason not to - e.g. For recovery/diagnostic tools

 

[corkyg]

Mark R - very good rationale and points, But, would you use NTFS on a 4GB thumb drive?

 

[evilspoons]

Note that exFAT support comes in through an update to Windows XP and possibly also Windows Vista. I think it's built in on Windows 7.

 

[tweakboy]

Listen to Corky,, enough said. If you want a boot drive make it fat32, if ur gonna use it in windows and what not to ntfs.. thanks and gl,

 

[nenforcer]

exFAT is now the way to go for flash drives. Supports all new large sized flash drives and supports > 4 GB file size as well while maintaining performance appropriate for the slower flash drives.

I had to download this file to enable support on Windows XP

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=1cbe3906-ddd1-4ca2-b727-c2dff5e30f61

 

[Massive Overkill]

I format all my USB drives with 64K File Allocation Unit Size NTFS as well as make sure they're partition-aligned (simply format with Vista, Win7, or Server 2008 OS). For my readyboost drives I use FAT32, partition-aligned largest File Allocation Unit size available (I believe it's also 64K, but I can't remember)

In Windows, I go into device mananger and optimize the drive for performance over quick removal. I have to transfer large amounts of data to my 16 gig thumb drive and the speed gain from the above is worth the extra trivial step of doing an "eject this drive".

 

[Mark R]

Mark R - very good rationale and points, But, would you use NTFS on a 4GB thumb drive?

I still do, because I like to have the option to use compression.

Yes, a proper archive format like ZIP or RAR is better - but they aren't always conveniently available, or don't perform well. E.g. Windows compressed folders are shockingly slow for writing (they don't support 'adding' batches of files to a compressed folders - so for each file - the archive is copied, a single file added, and the old archive deleted - leading to terrible performance - and a huge write-cycle load if you create the compressed folder on the flash drive) - whereas NTFS compression actually performs reasonably.

 

[Modelworks]

ext2 and the windows driver
http://www.fs-driver.org/