NTFS or FAT

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RicoDirenzo said:
FAT 32 is much beter on smaller drives, as Major mentioned, however, FAT 32 file systems are limited to the single file sizes (not over 3 gigs) and subject ot quick framentation and must be defragmented more often or HD's will slow down horribly. If you are storing files (Video or large Wave files) above 3 gigs in size FAT 32 will not work for you.

4 gigs, not 3. NTFS also suffers from fragmentation, and don't think it will be a huge issue anyway.
 
im not sure about fat being better with smaller drives but i am really sure that NFTS is faster and better cause i jus changed to ntfs on one of my drives, and it is much faster..... just go with the newer technology. That way your never get problems
 
alexsabree said:
im not sure about fat being better with smaller drives but i am really sure that NFTS is faster and better cause i jus changed to ntfs on one of my drives, and it is much faster..... just go with the newer technology. That way your never get problems
So pretty much you know nothing about it.LMAO
I used FAT32 on windows 98.But never on windows xp becuase when you reformat it doesnt ask you if you want FAT32.
 
Wow, a lot of really bad answers in this thread! The most common reason and most useful reason for NTFS is security. NTFS allows object permssions while FAT32 does not. I dont know if it is important, but NTFS also allows compression. There is a max size of 2TB with NTFS and 32GB with FAT32. FAT32 also has a max file size of 4GB while NTFS would allow a file size the same as the drive. These are the only things I can remeber from a class that I took on Operating Systems. But really, it comes down to security. NTFS is always the way to go. There isnt any instance I can think of when FAT32 would be better. Well..one...If you are dual booting with an OS that is formatted FAT32, you would *edit not *edit be able to access the NTFS drive from the FAT32 drive.
 
NTFS is better unless you need FAT32 compatability for some reason then go with NTFS.

NTFS is more efficient, cluster sizes are limited to 4K which is much smaller then used by FAT. So this means if you put a 1k file on an NTFS drive 4K of space is used but FAT would use an amount dependant on the drive size, perhaps for example 64K.

NTFS allows for the use of security permissions, encryption, and compression.

NTFS has multiple redundant tables and can easily recover from incompete operations e.g. if you computer crashed whislt writing data and NTFS drive would be fine but a FAT drive would become corrupt (atleast the file would).

FAT Should only really be used if you plan to run an older OS from the drive e.g. my second computer dual boots XP and win98 so I have to use FAT.
 
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