Re: Fat32 vs NTFS ?

From: Al Dykes (adykes_at_panix.com)
Date: 02/27/05 

Date: 27 Feb 2005 08:55:09 -0500

>In message <1121r6hsm76r46f@corp.supernews.com> AD
><graphi47uk@y.a.h.o.o.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>> - Less risk of loss and corruption of data
>>
>>I would not go that far, I have lost more data with NTFS than fat32

But was the loss _because of_ NTFS, or did NTFS prevent you from
recovering some of the data ?

IME, the amount of lost files I've seen on machines with FAT32 drives
(as .CHK files in c:\) is huge and I can't say I've lost a single file
or file system due to giving up on NTFS, ever. This is literally
thousands disks over 10 years, many on laptops that suffered from the
usual sudden shutdowns and abuse. Disks have died. That's not the
fault of NTFS.

IME, I can book knoppix and get files every time if a disk
is OK but unbootable.

>
>Then you probably didn't have the right recovery tools or spend enough
>time recovering. The techniques can be different, but recovery of most
>of the data should be possible unless there is hardware failure.
>

>Thanks to journaling and the way the file system is distributed, chances
>of the complete disk being lost because any one
>cluster/sector/track/whatever went bad is virtually zero.
>
>>> - Smaller cluster size, causing less data overhead and lower performance
>>> impact from fragmentation
>>
>>Drives get fragmented more.
>
>NTFS avoids fragmentation by attempting to find an appropriately large
>block of space in which to write a file, vs the typical FAT
>implementation which writes the file either at the first available
>space, or sequentially across the disk.
>
>>> - Native compression support
>>Never used it
>
>If you ever need it, it's there for you. It can also be a significant
>performance boost under some cases.
>
>>> - Better long file name support
>>
>>That can be a good idea, but it can also be silly.
>
>Since long file names are a reality (And used internally by Windows'
>default directory names), why piss around storing them in the
>traditional FAT method?
>
>>If I change back to XP, as I am using ME at the moment, I am going to
>>keep my drives as fat32. at least if anything goes wrong, I can stick
>>the drive in the other computer and get more chance of saving any files.
>
>My sympathies.
>
>
>--
>The preceding post may have contained foul language,
>and should not have been read by young children. 

-- 
a d y k e s @ p a n i x . c o m 
Don't blame me. I voted for Gore.

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