Re: Fat32 and NTFS Advantage and disadvantages?
- From: Bruce Chambers <bchambers@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2006 19:58:54 -0700
netzero wrote:
I have wXP Pro on both hard drives. one is fat32 and one is NTFS
why or should I make them both the same.
Which is better?
Thanks so much
Personally, I wouldn't even consider using FAT32 when NTFS is an option. FAT32 has no security capabilities, no compression capabilities, no fault tolerance, so support for files larger than 4 Gb (videos, anyone?), and a lot of wasted hard drive space on volumes larger than 8 Gb in size. (Just try finding a hard drive that small, nowadays.) The only reason I can think of to remain with FAT32 would be if you anticipated a high likelihood of having to connect that external drive to a Win9x machine. But your computing needs may vary, and there is no hard and fast answer.
To answer your questions without getting too technical is difficult, but has been handled quite well by the late Alex Nichol in the article here:
FAT & NTFS File Systems in Windows XP
http://www.aumha.org/a/ntfs.htm
Somewhat more technical information is here:
Limitations of the FAT32 File System in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/directory/article.asp?ID=kb;en-us;Q314463
Choosing Between File Systems
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/TechNet/prodtechnol/winntas/tips/techrep/filesyst.asp
NTFS file system
http://www.digit-life.com/articles/ntfs/
You can safely convert your current hard drive to NTFS whenever desired, without having to format the partition and reinstall everything. As always when performing any serious changes, back up any important data before proceeding, just in case. A little advance preparation is also strongly recommended, so you can avoid any performance hits caused by the default cluster size:
Converting FAT32 to NTFS in Windows
http://www.aumha.org/a/ntfscvt.htm
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Bruce Chambers
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