f1sh4u

Well, whats the main advantages and disadvatages to both? I have just bought a new external hard drive and im wondering whether format it as ntfs or fat32?

Thanks

Iain Young

NTFS uses the disc space more efficiently than FAT32, is less prone to problems, and has a decent security mechanism built in. I've found that it tends to be faster as well...

I format all my discs as NTFS these days...

class_A

Encryption, support for multi-user file permissions, drives > 2Tb, single file size only limited by volume (IIRC FAT32 only supports file sizes up to 4Gb, think DV editing)

Also WinXP won't format a drive over 32Gb as FAT32 unless you get hold of one of the Win9x utils.

f1sh4u

Ok, cheers guys, looks like NTFS is the way forward.

Lum

OTOH, FAT32 is simpler, has a larger array of recovery tools available, slightly faster and can be read by more non-Windows OSes.

Not saying you should use it, just pointing out some of it's advantages. I use it for my data partition on my work laptop since that partition is shared between Windows and Linux.

Iain Young

I've actually found NTFS to be far faster than FAT32, (and I've got file access benchmarking results at work to prove it).

There are probably less recovery tools for NTFS because it's less likely you'll need them than in FAT32

WRX_Rich

iTrader: (5)

and the data can be accessed by a simple boot disk if all goes wrong

if you are planning on hopping between different pcs all day I would advise fat32 otherwise ntfs will be best

the main difference that you will notice is security on files (fat32 has none) but if you start using it and moving around pc's you will find you will not be able to access files on the hard drive

Iain Young

You can acces NTFS from MSDOS. There are numerous tsr drivers etc out there which will let you do this, (just run them and you can access the disc just like any other drive).

WRX_Rich

iTrader: (5)

yeah, but then its not a simple boot disk and when you have secuity set it gets a bit difficult for a home user

Iain Young

Fair point

mark_h

NTFS is also a kind of journalled database and much more resilient than FAT32. If your PC is just turned off (eg power cut), chances are you'll get some corruption with FAT32 on any files being written at the time and will have to run a disk checker to fix. On the other hand, with NTFS there's a fairly good chance you won't get the same kind of corruption at all.

Lum

I thought journalling only protected the integrity of the filesystem, not the data being written.
NTFS security is easilly broken (one of the DOS TSRs mentioned above will do it) but is great for, eg, keeping parents, partners or flatmates out of your pr0n stash. :P