Win2k -> What is FASTER? NTFS or FAT32

[danielshoes]

Ok, so Win2k can use NTFS or FAT32. I already use NTFS and I nkow the technical advantages. But I don't know which is FASTER.

Do you know any benchmarks? Not between Win9X/FAT32 VS Win2k/NTFS. I mean only with Win2k, using both filesystems.

 

[BCYL]

I remember reading somewhere that FAT32 is very slightly faster than NTFS... but only very slightly, nothing you will ever notice...

 

[konichiwa]

FAT32, but NTFS will give you the security options.

 

[najar]

Just today i converted my partition from FAT32 to NTFS and I think NTFS takes noticibly longer to boot up and to shut down. I guess all the extra features and security doesn't come free after all. BTW, I have fully defraged my NTFS partition so it can't be that.

 

[airfoil]

For speed, FAT32 is quicker on WIn2K, its name notwithstanding!

 

[mindiris]

NTFS is slower, but its features more than make up for it. FAT32 is somewhat faster in normal usage. As for benchmarks, that would be interesting.

If only someone who has FAT32 and hasn't already converted their Win2K partition to NTFS...

 

[Sunner]

Just use NTFS, the speed difference will definately be too small to notice if you have a half decent comp with a good HD.

I have a 75GXP and a 34GXP and I've used both systems on both HD's, and I've noticed no difference.

 

[BadThad]

Hohoho...I've been waiting for this topic to rear is ugly head again, LOL. Here ya go folks, the holy grail of this debate:

FAT-32 ON WINDOWS 2000: PENNY-WISE AND POUND-FOOLISH?
by John L. Joseph, Diskeeper Development Section, Executive Software

Editor's Note: If someone is described as "penny-wise and pound-foolish", they are thought to be too careful about very small details and not able to consider larger, more important matters. (Cambridge International Dictionary of English). The expression comes from English (UK) currency, the penny being the much smaller unit and the pound (Sterling) being the larger.

-------------------------------------------------------

As more and more individuals and companies convert to Windows 2000, it's becoming a more and more common question to hear: "Should I use FAT-32?"

It is even more important to answer when I'm told by one user that he just received a desktop machine with Windows 2000 preinstalled on a 20GB drive under the FAT-32 file system, and another user tells me he just received his new laptop with Windows 2000 preinstalled on a 30GB drive under the FAT-32 file system.

Because of other problems I'd seen with the way mail-order computer vendors configured pre-installed systems, I knew I'd have to check it out.

The first place I went to was of course the Microsoft Knowledge Base*.

In article Q100108, I found this discussion:

"Disadvantages of FAT"

Preferably, when using drives or partitions of over 200 MB the FAT file system should not be used. This is because as the size of the volume increases, performance with FAT will quickly decrease."

Wow! That's a bit of a revelation for most computer users I know.

I then found this in article Q154997:

"For most users, FAT32 will have a negligible performance impact. Some programs may see a slight performance gain from FAT32. In other programs, particularly those heavily dependent on large sequential read or write operations, FAT32 may result in a modest performance degradation."

The obvious thing to do was to quantify what "modest" really meant.

I took a 866MHz Pentium III Windows 2000 machine with a DMA-66 IDE hard drive, and carved a 2GB volume out of the hard drive. I then created a program which would place 5200 files of known, predicted size on that volume, filling up the volume till it was 24% free, using all three file systems. I recorded the number of wall-clock seconds it took to complete the job. Here's how it came out:

- Under FAT-16, under which I could only use a 64K-byte cluster size, the job completed in 1,682 seconds.
- Under FAT-32, with a 4K-byte cluster, the job completed in 2,472 seconds; with a 1K-byte cluster size the job completed in 3,960 seconds; with a 512-byte cluster size the job completed in 7,860 seconds.
- Under NTFS, with a 4K-byte cluster, the job completed in 1,532 seconds; with a 1K-byte cluster size the job completed in 2,963 seconds; with a 512-byte cluster size the job completed in 4,983 seconds.


It's pretty clear that a 4096-byte cluster size provides better performance under both NTFS and FAT-32. More to the point for our investigation of FAT-32 is that it took an hour and a half longer to do the test with a 512-byte cluster size as opposed to a 4096-byte cluster size. That's 41 minutes (4K-byte cluster size) as opposed to 2 hours 11 minutes (512-byte cluster size)...three times longer with the smaller cluster size.

I do want to point out that NTFS with a 4K-byte cluster size performed the best. This echoes back to my previous articles where I insisted that it was well worth it to arrange to have a 4096-byte cluster size on your NTFS boot. In the case of this test suite, using NTFS with 4096-byte clusters results in about one-third the elapsed time as compared with using 512-byte clusters.

In fact, moving from FAT-32 512-byte clusters to NTFS 4K-byte clusters makes the job run in one fifth the time!

I ran a single test on a FAT-16 volume (64K was the only legal cluster size)and we can see that even with a cluster size that large, it still couldn't beat NTFS with 4096-byte clusters.

Now, I know some of you are running huge FAT-32 volumes with 512-byte clusters because of some highly specialized need. In your case, all I can suggest is that you seriously consider using a larger cluster size.

I have also heard protests about "cluster slack" -- that there's wasted space in them-thar big clusters. For them, I can only point out that I paid $129 for a 40GB hard drive a week ago. Suddenly, the last thing on my mind is the disk space I've lost in "cluster slack".

But, for my friend with the 30GB laptop running Windows 2000 only under FAT-32, reinstalling under NTFS with 4K-byte cluster size is a much better idea. Who needs to spend five times longer getting a job done on a laptop?

Obviously, when Diskeeper is working under a file system setup that yields better performance, Diskeeper itself performs better.

So my advice, in general, is stay away from FAT-32 under Windows 2000.

 

[Kappo]

wow, great article! THANKS...that helps me out a bit!

Now...how do I A) find out what my cluster size is...and B) can I change it if it is not what I want it to be?

 

[IamDavid]

Ya, thanks for the great article badthad.

 

[Need4Speed]

NTFS is a much more intelligent file system. Lets assume you are accessing 3 pieces of data on the HDD. One at sector 5, the next at sector 30, and the final piece at sector 12. The FAT file system will read them in the order that they were requested. Thus the read head of the hard drive goes 5...to 30...and back to 12. NTFS on the other hand has the built in inteligence to say "hey 12 is before 30, so i will pick that up along the way" thus the reader goes 5..12..30. A much faster and efficient way to read the Data. Couple that with a set of nice scsi disks and you have a killer multitasking system.... ....from my previous post

 

[Halz]

It is my inclination that NTFS provides better speed in all apsects when hard drives get closer and closer to their maximum limit. But then, it looks like the article already when't over that in some respects...

 

[joohang]

This is my personal bias:

On NT, use NTFS. If you need to dual boot (w/9x), create a FAT16/32 partition and install NT4/2000 on a logical NTFS partition.

 

[Magikal]

Well I would also like to know how to find out the cluster size and how to chanfe if needed.
Can I find out with Sandra and what do I nedd to change it?

 

[lanto]

I have win2k on a fat16 partition, should i reinstall and format to ntfs or is it an ok solution to use partition magic to just convert it to ntfs?

 

[mylam]

fat32 for me

 

[joohang]

Lanto,

Go to Command Prompt and type "convert /?"

Type in the appropriate parameters and reboot the machine.

 

[Magikal]

Ok thanx but what are the appropriate parramaeters? I converted all my drives after I installed win2k. But I did not know what to type in to change the cluster size so please inform me.

 

[joohang]

Majikal,

You might find this article useful:

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q140/3/65.asp?LN=EN-US&SD=gn&FR=0&qry=ntfs%20cluster&rnk=1&src=DHCS_MSPSS_gn_SRCH&SPR=WIN2000

I am not sure if you can adjust the cluster size for NTFS. I know that PQMagic can do that for FAT, but not sure if it's possible on NTFS.

 

[Daeymion]

If you happen to have partition magic, you can set your drive to NTFS with 64K cluster sizes. You'll see even better improvement in speed, but be warned, you will be wasting LOTS of space should you have small files. If you happen to work with video then you would want the partition which you dump files set to the largest cluster size as possible and keep 4K on your boot partition.

 

[Daeymion]

If you happen to have partition magic, you can set your drive to NTFS with 64K cluster sizes. You'll see even better improvement in speed, but be warned, you will be wasting LOTS of space should you have small files. If you happen to work with video then you would want the partition which you dump files set to the largest cluster size as possible and keep 4K on your boot partition.

 

[joohang]

That's interesting.

Thanks for the tip.

How does a bigger cluster size improve performance? Is it significant or just a margin more in benchmarks?

 

[CocaCola5]

Magikal, you can find out the cluster size by right clicking the partition and pressing format.

 

[danielshoes]

joohang,

It is simple to see why a higher cluster size improves disk performance.

Imagine a big file, let's say... 5 Mb.
When the hd head reads the data inside one cluster, it will search the next cluster, and the next, and the next, etc... until the file is completely assembled. If you have higer clusters, you will have also less clusters to build the file, and the hd head makes less movements changing your position.

And you must also remember that the cluster has to give the location of the next cluster (more unusefull data to be read)

Now, compare: 4k X 64k clusters (64/4 = 16) 16 times more clusters!!!
You must choose between the slack space and the perfomance.
The choice is yours.

 

[joohang]

Ah. That's cool.

Thanks.

It sounds like something I should use. I have 20GB and only used up 4 gigs. I could afford to sacrifice cluster waste for more performance.