FAT32 TO NTFS

[johnf]

I have 2 drives, both have 2nd. partitions (data only) which are FAT32.
I plan on converting them to NTFS, mainly to speed up defrag time, but am a
bit curious as to what XP Help says (or doesn't say), quote -

"This kind of conversion keeps your files intact (unlike formatting a
partition). If you do not need to keep your files intact and you have a
FAT32 partition, it is recommended that you format the partition with NTFS
rather than convert from FAT or FAT32."

Now, it would help if they clarified their recommendation to help anyone
make a decision which way to go, so what are they talking about?

 

[johnf]

Sorry, posted to this thread in error - re-posted as new post.

 

[Guest]

To convert,go to run,type:cm
At the curser type:CONVERT C: /FS:ntf
You can change C: to any letter,converting doesnt loose any data,your
ststem will run much better,after all is thru,defrag the drives.

 

[Trent©]

I have 2 drives, both have 2nd. partitions (data only) which are FAT32.
I plan on converting them to NTFS, mainly to speed up defrag time,

Why do you think the conversion will speed up defrags for you? All
you'll do with the conversion is make it very difficult to get at your
files in case of a crash.

Get a program called Vopt...very fast defrags...and you can exempt
certain size files from defragging.

Good luck.


Have a nice week...

Trent

Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity!

 

[johnf]

I don't think, I know.

I have 2 partitioned drives, Part 1 on both has an O.S., NTFS; Part 2 on
both contain a few progs & stacks of pure data, both FAT32.
I regularly defrag each one when running my C: O.S. (using Diskeeper Pro 8.0
which gives accessibility to any of the 4 Partitions) and never takes more
than 1 minute for both the NTFS Parts., but can run up to 30 mins. on either
of the FAT32 ones.

IOW, I can boot into either C: or E: and select and defrag any of the 4
partitions from there.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Greetings --

If your only goal is to reduce defragmentation time, I don't
believe converting to NTFS will make that great of a difference.

You can safely convert your 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.

That WinXP Help paragraph is correct, but it certainly doesn't
explain itself very well. When you have an empty partition and
_format_ it using the NTFS file system, you end up with clusters that
are 4 Kb in size. If you _convert_ a FAT32 partition to NTFS, using
only WinXP's native tools, you end up with clusters of 512 bytes.
This can cause a noticeable performance loss, particularly during
defrags. But never fear, there's a way around this. A little
advance preparation is strongly recommended, so you can avoid any
performance hits caused by the default cluster sizes:

Converting FAT32 to NTFS in Windows
http://www.aumha.org/a/ntfscvt.htm


Bruce Chambers

--
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You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on
having both at once. -- RAH

 

[johnf]

Thanks, Bruce, I'll definitely use PM which should eliminate the 512 byte
hazard with the XP one.

 

[Trent©]

I don't think, I know.

I have 2 partitioned drives, Part 1 on both has an O.S., NTFS; Part 2 on
both contain a few progs & stacks of pure data, both FAT32.
I regularly defrag each one when running my C: O.S. (using Diskeeper Pro 8.0
which gives accessibility to any of the 4 Partitions) and never takes more
than 1 minute for both the NTFS Parts., but can run up to 30 mins. on either
of the FAT32 ones.

IOW, I can boot into either C: or E: and select and defrag any of the 4
partitions from there.

Things that can make a significant difference in defrag time...

1. Placement of the partition. The 1st partition on both the drives
is NTFS.

2. Kinds of files.

3. Size of files.

4. Are you performing a consolidation on any of the partitions?

5. Are your cluster sizes correct...optimal...for the different
partitions?

Again...if you need to boot into a system disk to access your NTFS
files...how will you do that? If you have the answer to that
question, you shouldn't have much of a problem.


Good luck.


Have a nice week...

Trent

Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity!