fat 32 vs ntfs

[wingman411]

How much of an advantage is it to convert a fat32 to ntfs?

Does it make xp run better/faster?

 

[lechtard]

Ntfs (New Technology File System) will see bigger HD's than fat32 (File Allocation Table - 32 bit .. The new ones coming out would be Fat64 ) and it's also more secure (so they say) ... If you are running xp it is smart to use ntfs as far as I am concerned ...

The only downfall is that Fat won't see NTFS, but NTFS will see Fat ...

 

[NetRyder]

Originally posted by lechtard
The only downfall is that Fat won't see NTFS, but NTFS will see Fat ...

It's notreally the filesystems that see each other.
Just to make what you were trying to say a little clearer: If you dual boot Windows 9x/ME and XP, 9x/ME will be unable to read any NTFS formatted drives. 9x/ME recognize only FAT32 formatted partitions on the local machine.
This doesn't apply to network shares though. You can share files/folders on an NTFS drive on a network, and Windows 9x/ME machines will be able to read and write to those shared folders just like any other 2000/XP machines.

With that said, NTFS is a newer, faster journaling file system with extra features such as built-in file compression and encryption. Unless you're dual booting XP with 9x/ME or Linux (Linux can only read NTFS partitions, it cannot write to them), I would definitely recommend NTFS over FAT32. And although it is possible to convert a FAT32 partition to NTFS, it's not recommended, since conversion creates inefficient cluster sizes that will slow down your entire system in most cases. If you choose the NTFS route, you should reformat the drive as NTFS.

 

[PF Prophet]

u can access ntfs from dosbased os's(9x runs over dos) just gotta run one of the ntfs access tools
but why would you have 9x on ur system anymore 2k,2k3 are far better solutions
i dont like xp its to bloated and resorce hungery :/ i do however like 2k3 becouse it adapts it self to the computer if u have an old SLOW cpu it acctuly sets it self for slow cpu and works just as well as 2k speed wise

NTFS is the only way to go if u are using any nt based os (nt4,2k,2k3) its far more secure and dosnt error neerly as much as fat32
there will be no fat64 they are moving away from anything to do with fat infact they plan to leave it out of the relice of the next full windows version

i have seen fat32 systems just for no reasion loose all partitions on the system (no virus no tweaking) causing people to loose all there data
i have never seen ntfs loose anything i have had to boot from a cd and do recovery but thats no big deal if you have any skill at all with dos style command's
and its one hell of alot better then loosing all ur sh!t to fat32 desiding that it didnt want to work anymore :S

 

[Unleashed]

http://www.ntfs.com/

 

[Reg]

I would go with NTFS, period. NTFS is a jouralized file system is more secure and much safer than FAT32. Because of its structure, the possibility of corruption decreases.

The reason why FAT32 can't "see" NTFS is because NTFS came after FAT32. At the time, FAT32 was an extention to FAT16 that enabled you to go beyond the 2GB per drive letter limit and increased the maximum size of your HD to about 32GB (that is not the physical limit of FAT32. That's the "sanity" limit. Go above that limit... your hard drive corruption level will go insane!).

The next file system release by Microsoft (WinFS) will allow for the file system to run similar to SQL's WinFS system which should incorporate better file security and an improvement in speed (journalized database architecture).

 

[j79zlr]

NetRyder posted:
And although it is possible to convert a FAT32 partition to NTFS, it's not recommended, since conversion creates inefficient cluster sizes that will slow down your entire system in most cases. If you choose the NTFS route, you should reformat the drive as NTFS.

I have converted a few FAT32 drives to NTFS using the convert command and have never experienced either a problem or a slowdown.