I'm going to be upgrading to Win2K soon and I'm wondering which file system to use. I'm going to go with a dual boot Win98/2K setup. What file system should I use? Thanks. 
What does NFTS offer over FAT32?
- Thread starter Muerto
- Start date
Mainly file security and it doesn't seem to fragment as bad. If you are dual booting use Fat32 for compatibility between the OS'es.
NTFS is a complex subject, but suffice to say it handles fragmentation better than FAT32. It's a moot point, as per John's post you will have to go with FAT32 if you want to dual boot.
Why do you have to go with FAT32 if you are dual booting?
If you plan on dual booting, setup up TWO partitions on your computer. Install win98SE on the FIRST fat32 partition (C) and afterwards boot from the Win2k CD and it'll automatically detect the win98 installation and tell it to install to the SECOND fat32 partition (D).
Then during the win2k installation, it'll ask you if you want to format the second partition as NTFS, or FAT32. Have win2k setup program format it as NTFS and you should be okay.
If you plan on dual booting, setup up TWO partitions on your computer. Install win98SE on the FIRST fat32 partition (C) and afterwards boot from the Win2k CD and it'll automatically detect the win98 installation and tell it to install to the SECOND fat32 partition (D).
Then during the win2k installation, it'll ask you if you want to format the second partition as NTFS, or FAT32. Have win2k setup program format it as NTFS and you should be okay.
NTFS also has file protection which enables only certain users to view some files (if requested). You can also get more space out of NTFS. I think that, with compression, you can get all of the space (30GB = 30GB instead of 28GB with FAT32)
TheWildcard,
True, you CAN have different file systems on a dual boot. --But the Win98 will not be able to see the NTFS partition if you do that. I've been in that position before on a dual boot rig I had, and though you may think it will work at first, it gets REALLY REALLY old.
Ricky
DesignDawg
True, you CAN have different file systems on a dual boot. --But the Win98 will not be able to see the NTFS partition if you do that. I've been in that position before on a dual boot rig I had, and though you may think it will work at first, it gets REALLY REALLY old.
Ricky
DesignDawg
One feature thats not to be forgotten is journaling.
It reduces the chance of filesystem corruption due to stuff like unexpected shutdowns to pretty much null.
It reduces the chance of filesystem corruption due to stuff like unexpected shutdowns to pretty much null.
NTFS offers "security" down to the "file level" and other security benefits that can't be
obtained with FAT32.........
If you setup a "dual boot" scenario like described by "wildcard" on separate disk partions you should be sailing.....
...who needs to swap files (or whatever) between two different OS's anyway???
obtained with FAT32.........
If you setup a "dual boot" scenario like described by "wildcard" on separate disk partions you should be sailing.....
...who needs to swap files (or whatever) between two different OS's anyway???
That's the most ridiculous question I've ever heard. They're your files. You need them. Now, that's the kind of thing someone who dual boots between Windows and Linux would say. --And it makes sense there, because you can't hardly use anything between those two OSes. --But two windows OSes is a different matter entirely.
Dude, you have NO IDEA why he wants a dual boot. Who would want to swap files between OSes? Hmmmm..ANYONE maybe? DO you want to HAVE TO burn every MP3 you have, every install file you have? The reason I used to dual-boot was because I needed the dual monitor capabilities of 98, but I have a program that requires the NT Kernel. So, I used 98 for all my graphics use, and NT for my animation. --And since the only format they both use is FAT, and I didn't want to partition into 15 2 GB drives, I had to go FAT32 for 98, and FAT for NT4.
--And whenever I wanted to install something I had downloaded and was in NT, I had to reboot, go into Win98, and put them on the NT partition. Sure, I could have burned CD's, but that gets outdated quickly. Sure does help if both partitions can see each other.
Dude, you have NO IDEA why he wants a dual boot. Who would want to swap files between OSes? Hmmmm..ANYONE maybe? DO you want to HAVE TO burn every MP3 you have, every install file you have? The reason I used to dual-boot was because I needed the dual monitor capabilities of 98, but I have a program that requires the NT Kernel. So, I used 98 for all my graphics use, and NT for my animation. --And since the only format they both use is FAT, and I didn't want to partition into 15 2 GB drives, I had to go FAT32 for 98, and FAT for NT4.
--And whenever I wanted to install something I had downloaded and was in NT, I had to reboot, go into Win98, and put them on the NT partition. Sure, I could have burned CD's, but that gets outdated quickly. Sure does help if both partitions can see each other.
The better question to ask is: Why are you gonna dual-boot between 98 and 2K? Why hold on to 98? At this point, there's not really anything you can't do with 2K, and if you have decent hardware, even gaming is good on a 2K system.
Ricky
DesignDawg
Ricky
DesignDawg
On a side note, has anyone seen bench comparisons of NTFS and FAT32? I'd expect NTFS to have a higher overhead.
I'd use FAT32 for the Win98 partition or disk, NTFS for the W2K partition / disk. If you need access to your W2K partition when booted into Win98 there's an inexpensive utility from Sysinternals that allows a Win98 OS to have read and write access to NTFS4 and NTFS5.
But I do tend to agree with the sentiment "Why bother?". Unless there was something I absolutely had to have that would run under Win9X but NOT under W2K, I wouldn't bother dual booting. W2K is enough better that it makes the hardware seem better.
BTW, NTFS carries a lot of overhead (however efficiently managed) for maintaining the file sysystem. FAT32 is noticeably faster on smaller partitions with less complex directory structures / fewer files. The more complex "database" plus journaling will net you a slower boot and shutdown than you get with FAT32. But normal operations like opening apps seems a bit snappier because NTFS "knows where it's at" when it comes to keeping track of files and the fragments thereof. NTFS really begins to shine, speed-wise, when the directory / file structures get complex and the partitions get huge. NTFS fragments just as rapidly as a FAT32 partition with the same sized clusters. Since NTFS partitions of a given size tend to have smaller clusters than FAT32 allows, they usually actually fragment FASTER than FAT32. However, NTFS suffers much less performance loss at the same level of fragmentation -- unless the MFT or pagefile are fragmented. MFT and pagefile fragmentation can kill performance. Best to get a good defragger which can take care of the MFT. (The one that comes with W2K won't defrag the MFT.)
BTW, for the most versatile NTFS partition you want to format NTFS during the install and specify the 4,096 byte cluster size. This is optimal for most people -- since it's the largest cluster size that lets you have compression / encryption, yet it's small enough that it doesn't contribute unduly to fragmentation. If you format FAT or FAT32 first, then convert to NTFS later, you wind up with 512 byte clusters. That's no good. That size cluster is half the size of an MFT file entry. That will force the MFT to fragment, which is one of the most ungood things you can do for file system performance in NTFS.
As far as benchmarks are concerned, I still haven't seen any that reflect real world experience. I would use NTFS if it were half as fast as FAT32, just because of the security capabilities and the solidity of the data storage it offers. Having come from the AIX world where a power supply failure usually led to bloodshed (Hell, you couldn't even power down the boxes manually without unplugging them!), having a robust OS that doesn't give up the ghost if the power gets killed is very nice.
$.02 from an old fart perspective.
Regards,
Jim
But I do tend to agree with the sentiment "Why bother?". Unless there was something I absolutely had to have that would run under Win9X but NOT under W2K, I wouldn't bother dual booting. W2K is enough better that it makes the hardware seem better.
BTW, NTFS carries a lot of overhead (however efficiently managed) for maintaining the file sysystem. FAT32 is noticeably faster on smaller partitions with less complex directory structures / fewer files. The more complex "database" plus journaling will net you a slower boot and shutdown than you get with FAT32. But normal operations like opening apps seems a bit snappier because NTFS "knows where it's at" when it comes to keeping track of files and the fragments thereof. NTFS really begins to shine, speed-wise, when the directory / file structures get complex and the partitions get huge. NTFS fragments just as rapidly as a FAT32 partition with the same sized clusters. Since NTFS partitions of a given size tend to have smaller clusters than FAT32 allows, they usually actually fragment FASTER than FAT32. However, NTFS suffers much less performance loss at the same level of fragmentation -- unless the MFT or pagefile are fragmented. MFT and pagefile fragmentation can kill performance. Best to get a good defragger which can take care of the MFT. (The one that comes with W2K won't defrag the MFT.)
BTW, for the most versatile NTFS partition you want to format NTFS during the install and specify the 4,096 byte cluster size. This is optimal for most people -- since it's the largest cluster size that lets you have compression / encryption, yet it's small enough that it doesn't contribute unduly to fragmentation. If you format FAT or FAT32 first, then convert to NTFS later, you wind up with 512 byte clusters. That's no good. That size cluster is half the size of an MFT file entry. That will force the MFT to fragment, which is one of the most ungood things you can do for file system performance in NTFS.
As far as benchmarks are concerned, I still haven't seen any that reflect real world experience. I would use NTFS if it were half as fast as FAT32, just because of the security capabilities and the solidity of the data storage it offers. Having come from the AIX world where a power supply failure usually led to bloodshed (Hell, you couldn't even power down the boxes manually without unplugging them!), having a robust OS that doesn't give up the ghost if the power gets killed is very nice.
$.02 from an old fart perspective.
Regards,
Jim
Hey i am going to RAID 0 2 10gb drives, how big should i make the partition when stripping 2 10 gig drives?
DesignDawg: For me, there are actualy alot of reasons why I need my dual boot setup with win98. First off, quake3 has some problems with win2k in terms of gamma. In fact, i am having alot of problems with gamma in Half Life as well. Plus not all games are compatible with win2k.
Plus, my DXR3 creative dvd decoder's beta drivers are just that, beta and are quite buggy in win2k. So i have to boot to win98 to watch dvd's.
So in my case I still need win98.
Plus, my DXR3 creative dvd decoder's beta drivers are just that, beta and are quite buggy in win2k. So i have to boot to win98 to watch dvd's.
So in my case I still need win98.
<< Hey i am going to RAID 0 2 10gb drives, how big should i make the partition when stripping 2 10 gig drives? >>
Since you will have ~20GB's of space, make a 3GB primary partition for the OS, and the rest can be your 2nd partition for everything else. That's what I did with my (2) 30GB 75GXP's in raid0 FWIW.
isn't fat32 an array and ntfs a binary tree. that should make access on bigger partitions with lots of files faster i would think. search time for n elements for fat32 is N, and a tree is like log(N). if you need to dual boot though, i would make it all fat32 for compatibilities sake. or just go all out with win2k.
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