Re: Fat32 vs NTFS ?

From: Joe Earnest (jearnest3-SPAM_at_earthlink.net)
Date: 02/27/05 

Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2005 15:56:22 -0700

"DevilsPGD" <ihatespam@crazyhat.net> wrote in message
news:ua0421lrpm2n88lrdd3ma8d3c59tihoaah@localhost...
> In message <1123clhb8n1scb2@corp.supernews.com> Ad
> <graphi47uk@y.a.h.o.o.co.uk> wrote:

...

>>> 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.
>>
>>then it do not work, because I find with NTFS, I had to defrag my drive
>>a lot more than I do with fat32
>
> Why? Because the fragmentation map doesn't look as pretty, or because
> you notice a performance hit?
>
> Don't get me wrong -- There are cases where an NTFS formatted partition
> will fragment more then FAT, but this is fairly rare in typical
> applications.

...

Actually, I believe Ad may have a point on defrag'ing, but not because of
differences between FAT32 and NTFS, simply because of cluster size. Ad's
talking about a relatively large HD. I converted several large drives and
partitions from FAT32 partitions to solo or fewer NTFS partitions a few
months ago, and I have noticed a similar phenomenon -- a need to defragment
more often for performance. I write it off to the extremely large cluster
sizes that FAT32 forces on you, if you use large partitions. At those
sizes, you can work with the bulk of word processing and accounting files
and never bust out of the single end cluster. Using the large FAT32 cluster
sizes, I rarely defragmented and never noticed a performance hit -- the
drive head just didn't have move that much to load or save the files. I've
always assumed that multiple moves, even if shorter, are more of a
performance hit than is a single longer move across the disk. Of course,
this advantage comes at a cost. I gained about 15% to 20% more effective
capacity when I changed to the smaller NTFS clusters. I suppose that one
could simply setup an NTFS drive for a large cluster size and regain this
"advantage," if you can afford the wasted space. Like I said, I see this
point as being an issue of cluster sizing, not FAT32 vs. NTFS.

Joe Earnest

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