Re: FDisk

From: cquirke (MVP Win9x) (cquirkenews_at_nospam.mvps.org)
Date: 04/07/04 

Date: Wed, 07 Apr 2004 11:11:40 +0200

On Tue, 06 Apr 2004 20:31:13 -0400, Barry Watzman

>While some video applications may need partitions over 32 gigs (I have
>an 80 gig partition for video editing only), in general large video
>files MUST be NTFS anyway.

Yep - the 4G per file limit

>Microsoft has limited the ability of their software to CREATE FAT32
>partitions over 32 gigs, but if such a partition is created with non-MS
>software (Partition Magic, for just example), the will support using it.

You make it sound as if this were an elegent design limitation. It
isn't. An elegent design would refuse to start formatting a FAT32
volume > 32G, stating upfront that it is "too big".

Instead, what happens is that the formatter begins the format process
and continues right up to at least the 32G mark before failing with a
"volume too big" error. It looks like a deliberate attempt to make
FAT32 look flakier than it is.

>However, FAT32 partitions over even 16 gig start to have real, and
>sometimes serious issues in terms of efficiency and performance. I
>strongly recommend not creating such partitions.

I would not use such partitions as C: (in fact, I use 7.99G FAT32 C:
so as to enjoy page-friendly 4k clusters) but routinely use large
FAT32 volumes (up to 120G) for data, rather than frequently used apps.
All my videos, music, pictures and games run from there, and are fine.

I just wish MS would deliver a decent maintenance platform for NTFS,
so that using NTFS in consumer land didn't mean increasing the impact
of active malware infections, HD failures and file system corruption.

>-------------------- ----- ---- --- -- - - - -
  Running Windows-based av to kill active malware is like striking
  a match to see if what you are standing in is water or petrol.
>-------------------- ----- ---- --- -- - - - -

Relevant Pages

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