With the size of hard drives growing as they are, it would seem that NTFS is the only file system that will be suit our

[RFJ]

I am new to this forum, but my question is seemingly pertinent to the advancement of the tech and our needs.

The question is: with the size of hard drives growing as they are, it would seem that NTFS is the only file system that will be suit our needs, no ?

I have been building systems for decades. In earlier years I avoided NTFS as it was so incompatible with earlier OS s such as Win 95, and various 16 bit pgms and utils that one might run.

But now, with folks putting in 120 gig drives left and right and drives are only going to get bigger, with video streaming and DVD becoming more mainstream, the fact of Fat 32 slowing down with large numbers of files becomes a concern.

Excluding those that wish to use dual boot systems such as with Linux, does anyone see any present disadvantage to using NTFS on a 120 gig drive. One can?t even get WinXP, when preinstalled, in anything other than WinXP NTFS.

Particularly since the main OS will be booting off of Fat 32 in Win 2K and dual booting to Win98, which supports NTFS reading and writing.

Is there any observable reason one should not use NTFS on a data storage only IDE drive in a SCSI system which 95 % of the time operates in Win 2K ?

 

[Vegito]

True.. but i rather be able to boot to a dos disk so I can edit some stuff that you can't do in w98 or w2k...

if w2k has a boot disk that lets u access ntfs better. i do it....

 

[MisterDuck]

I don't see any benefit whatsoever of going with as FAT32 file system, since it doesn't offer the file permissions of a NTFS install - besides being backwards compatible with *really* old files, I don't see a benefit to FAT32. If it's such a concern, you can always change a FAT32 file system to NTFS at a later date - although I don't think you can go from a NTFS to a FAT32.

Personally, I go NTFS pretty much without a thought since I just think it's far more useful than FAT32 will ever be.

 

[Zlash]

FAT32 will still be able to address drives for a long time, although ntfs is a better solution.

 

[RFJ]

Point #1
So with these newer, and rather economical 120 gig drives and larger, the question of FAT 32 drives slowing down with large number of files - and also cluster size on large partitions - becomes a concern.


Point #2
I have not, personally, done tests of large number of files becoming a slowdown factor, however, important is the capacity to access the NTFS drive.

Forcesho, from what you wrote, is there reason to expect that one cannot access an NTFS volume from a DOS boot and DOS file edit utility ?

 

[AndyHui]

I think my FAQ FAT32 vs NTFS presents enough argument to go with NTFS.

 

[CQuinn]

Newer drives (even the 5400rpm models) are much faster than earlier generations, due to higher data density
and better electronics.

I have personally managed directories with several thousand files files in them (both at the main folder level and in
subdirectories) on both FAT32 and NTFS partitions and have not noticed any appreciable slowdown in file access.

You can always partition a drive into smaller sections and apply the filesystem of your choosing to each section.

DOS cannot read the NTFS filesystem type, Windows 95 thru ME cannot read NTFS by default. There are third party
utilities that gave access to earlier versions of NTFS, but I think even they were broken by the release of XPs NTFS.
(though they are probably updated by now). Windows NT and Windows 2000 can access, but only after updating
them with the appropriate service packs. XP converts all exisiting NTFS partitions to the latest version during install
(as did W2K before it).

 

[BlitzRommel]

<< I think my FAQ FAT32 vs NTFS presents enough argument to go with NTFS. >>



Yep, sure does. FAT32 is dead according to my network.

 

[RFJ]

Andy, that is an impressive FAQ. Damn, you are not far off, relatively speaking, from 10K posts.

It might seem that NTFS, plus the better or best utility to permit file access from a DOS boot, if that is possible, is the way to go.

Obviously there are drivers, such as that from Winternals, which permit Win98 read only access to NTFS, but for true file edit from a DOS boot, the potential utilities would seem to fall under theses:

tools link

Is there an Andy, or otherwise, recommendation of what is the preferable DOS boot NTFS access tool (s) ?

 

[n0cmonkey]

<< Andy, that is an impressive FAQ. Damn, you are not far off, relatively speaking, from 10K posts. >>



I bet a good 75% of those posts come from telling people to check the FAT32 vs NTFS FAQ

 

[singh]

I always keep my boot partition as FAT32 (for the boot-disk), but the rest are always NTFS.

 

[CSFM]

I bet a good 75% of those posts come from telling people to check the FAT32 vs NTFS FAQ

How did I know you were going to say that!

-CSFM-

 

[RFJ]

Singh, that is because there is little likelihood of the need to access a file from a DOS boot that is not in the FAT 32 partition ? And that after correcting whatever, if anything, that might be needed to correct in the FAT 32 partition, the remainder of the partitions would then be perfectly viewable from the launched and possibly correct OS ?

Separately, I am curious if there is any reason that a partition rescue utility, such as the Norton Rescue disk, would have any trouble recreating the Master Boot Record from a multiple disk span of Fat 32 and NTFS ? I suspect not?

 

[Nothinman]

If you're stuck using Windows you might as well use NTFS, FAT's problems aren't worth the risk. If you absolutely need to access the files from another OS then make a FAT32 drive for transferring data between them, but use the native filesystems for the OS whenever possible.

Separately, I am curious if there is any reason that a partition rescue utility, such as the Norton Rescue disk, would have any trouble recreating the Master Boot Record from a multiple disk span of Fat 32 and NTFS ? I suspect not?

If you mean like using NDD to search for and recover a partition you accidentally deleted, or your partition table got hosed, then it probably won't find NTFS partitions because I believe it looks for FAT partition signature and then tries to figure out the size by reading the FSINFO structure in the FAT header.