NTFS verses FAT 32

[Guest]

Hello
I Just bought XP. I have it installed on a FAT 32 formated drive (it's a long and embarrassing story, don't ask). My question is what advantage/disadvantage does NTFS have over FAT 32?

Thanks, Al Watkins

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

NTFS Preinstallation and Windows XP
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/hwdev/tech/storage/ntfs-preinstall.mspx

Converting FAT32 to NTFS in Windows XP
http://aumha.org/win5/a/ntfscvt.htm

[Courtesy of Alex Nichol, MS-MVP]

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User

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"Al Watkins" (e-mail address removed) wrote in message:

| Hello
| I Just bought XP. I have it installed on a FAT 32 formated drive
(it's a long and embarrassing story, don't ask).
My question is what advantage/disadvantage does NTFS have over FAT 32?
|
| Thanks, Al Watkins

 

[Yves Leclerc]

FAT32 partitions are limited to a size (32MB????).

NTFS can support a partition to the max size of hard drive (currently 250MB)
with the installation of Servcie Pack 1. NTFS can also allow secured acces
to directories and files. FAT 32 does not

NTFS is invisiable to most software.

Y.

Hello
I Just bought XP. I have it installed on a FAT 32 formated drive (it's a

long and embarrassing story, don't ask). My question is what
advantage/disadvantage does NTFS have over FAT 32?

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Greetings --

Personally, I wouldn't even consider using FAT32 when NTFS is an
option. FAT32 has no security capabilities, no compression
capabilities, no fault tolerance, and a lot of wasted hard drive space
on volumes larger than 8 Gb in size. 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 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/tr...prodtechnol/winntas/tips/techrep/filesyst.asp

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. 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


Bruce Chambers

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Hello
I Just bought XP. I have it installed on a FAT 32 formated drive

(it's a long and embarrassing story, don't ask). My question is what
advantage/disadvantage does NTFS have over FAT 32?

 

[Ken Blake]

In

FAT32 partitions are limited to a size (32MB????).

You mean GB, not MB, but it still isn't correct. FAT32 partitions
can be up to 2048GB.

Windows XP can not *create* a FAT32 partition large than 32GB,
but it will happily use one if it's created externally.

 

[Tim Slattery]

FAT32 partitions are limited to a size (32MB????).

WinXP won't create FAT32 partitions larger than 32GB (not MB!), but it
is able to use larger FAT32 partitions that have been created with
other software (Win98, Partition Magic, etc). The theoretical limit
for FAT32 is 2 terabytes, but it gets progressively more unwieldy on
larger partitions (that's why XP prefers NTFS for very large
partitions).

NTFS can support a partition to the max size of hard drive (currently 250MB)
with the installation of Servcie Pack 1. NTFS can also allow secured acces
to directories and files. FAT 32 does not

Yes. The partition size limit for NTFS is astronomical, far larger
than the biggest drives available today (look here for a discussion of
the limits:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/tr...prodtechnol/winxppro/reskit/prkc_fil_tdrn.asp)

Many of the advanced security mechanisms in XP depend on NTFS to work.
If you're using FAT32 you simply can't use them.

NTFS is invisiable to most software.

Absolutely, since software normally uses standard I/O calls. It's the
operating systems job to translate those to the specific file system
in use. Application software generally doesn't know any specifics of
the file system.