NTFS or FAT32?

[Nidz]

This is one for our computer nerds/camera people. I have a storage drive which I use to backup all my photos on. 60 gig. Especially good when on trips etc.. My question is do you go FAT32 or NTFS? I run Windows XP on NTFS but I read that CFII cards use FAT32. It works with both file systems. Just wondering if there's a logical reason for having one or the other?

PS: I know the difference between the 2 file systems.

Cheers.

[NickSimcheck]

Well only thing I can comment on is when a CFII card is 2Gigs or less they are FAT32, when over 2Gigs they need to be FAT16 and run a partion. For some reason Camera's have a hard time with that. I know that is kinda off topic but thought I'd mention it. As to which one is better, I assume NTFS, but I couldn't really tell you.

[SkipD]

The format of CF cards is irrelevant to how you format your hard drives - either internal or external. If I am running any NT-based operating system (NT, Win2K, XP, etc.) I format all my hard drives as NTFS.

The only exception would be if a drive has to connect to an operating system that doesn't understand NTFS. For example, if you had a Win98 machine and used a drive to go between that and an NT-based machine, I would suggest formatting that drive as FAT-32. That way both machines could read the drive contents. You should format your partition sizes according the specs for the machine with the most restrictive operating system.

[Hermeto]

I think that CF cards cannot be formatted in NTFS, but I don’t see any reason not to use NTFS on your external hard drive.

NickSimcheck, are you sure that it’s not the other way round: FAT16 for smaller cards and FAT32 for larger than 2GB?

[Jon]

FAT16 - drives can't go over 2 GB.
FAT32 - bigger - so newer digital cameras use it on their cards. Files can't be over 2 GB.
NTFS - generally reserved for hard drives. It's more robust than FAT32, but the directory structure's proprietary, so cameras don't use it. Windows 95, 98, Me, Mac and Linux can't read it either (without getting a special add-in).
So if you're thinking you might want to hook your external drive up to someone else's (above-types) computer, choose the drive format accordingly. But the card formats don't matter.

[KennyG]

NTFS is more robust and is the better choice. Don't confuse what your CF cards use with what your PC storage uses.

[Nidz]

Yeah.. well i use a 1GB card which is FAT32 and my storage tub has a laptop hard drive which was NTFS.. i guess for compatibility reasons I decided to switch it over to FAT32.. I guess it won't make a difference.

thanks for your comments

[neo265]

NTFS has no issues using FAT16/32 devices, it is designed to be backward compatable. However if you stuck an NTFS hard drive in a computer formatted with FAT.....it wont work. FAT16 limits you to 2Gb partitons.....FAT32 increases that by loads.

NTFS is more advanced than FAT and allows you to have bigger partitions and also allows you to encrypt/protect data which FAT cant do. NTFS is more effecient too, disk space on a hard drive comprises of what is know as clusters. With NTFS, you decide on the cluster size.......default is 8kb (I think). That means if you save a 4Kb file, it uses 1 cluster which is 8kb which means you lose 4kb of space. With FAT, the bigger the partiton the bigger the cluster size. Eg....a 10Gb partition cluster size is 16kb so the same 4kb file uses the whole 16kb cluster. There are performace issues with using tiny cluster sizes when you work with large files, so finding the right balance of performace is down to the user.

If you right click on a file in say Windows XP, there are two Sizes, file size and size on disk....size on disk is the total of clusters (in kb) that file uses.

Hope this helps.

[Longwatcher]

My only logical reason for using one over the other:
I occasionally do video files (as in 30GB video files) I can't use anything but NTFS for that so NTFS it is for me unless I need FAT32 for some compatability with another computer issue.

otherwise I could care less except I am given to understand NTFS is a better system to use from a reliability/stability standpoint.

[rlhphotos]

Wont matter either format you use will be fine..only benefit to using FAT32 is if you ever hook it up to a Mac youll be good to go, data integrity is better on a NTFS partition so its kind of a catch 22...

[Jon]

NTFS has no issues using FAT16/32 devices, it is designed to be backward compatable. However if you stuck an NTFS hard drive in a computer formatted with FAT.....it wont work. FAT16 limits you to 2Gb partitons.....FAT32 increases that by loads.
Not so. If the OS supports NTFS (NT4, Windws 2000, Windows XP), there's no problem. If the OS doesn't support NTFS, there's a problem. It is quite possible to install XP on a FAT32 partition; in fact many people do just that so they can get at the root partition via a DOS boot diskette in case of problems.

[islandtime]

Let your camera format your CF card. Only Windows is concerned with weather a hard drive or other storage has been formatted fat32 or ntfs. Any windows pc can read the format that the camrea uses but the camera may not recognize the Windows formatting.

For an external HD I'd use ntfs.

[foxbat]

I'd use NTFS for reliability reasons. Because of the internal state changes that happen when files and their metadata are written to disk it used to be possible to lose your entire file system to a power outage if it were formatted with FAT, and yes it's happened to me way back when. That's not supposed to be possible with NTFS.

[DavidEB]

Mac OSX supports NTFS. >>>reference<<< (http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/apple/macosxcombinedupdate_10_3_6.html)

[Todd Jacobsen]

This is one for our computer nerds/camera people. I have a storage drive which I use to backup all my photos on. 60 gig. Especially good when on trips etc.. My question is do you go FAT32 or NTFS? I run Windows XP on NTFS but I read that CFII cards use FAT32. It works with both file systems. Just wondering if there's a logical reason for having one or the other?

PS: I know the difference between the 2 file systems.

Cheers.


I think you got your answer. NTFS. Use of FAT32 on HDs today is the same as using FAT16 really. No one uses FAT16 anymore, and there is no reason you need to use FAT32.

[davidfig]

Just wondering if there's a logical reason for having one or the other?

Yes there is. The NTFS filesystem is a journalling file system. This means, in laymens terms, that it will not corrupt files like the old days. If you used dos, windows 95/98, sunos, solaris and you unplugged the power you would loose data almost for sure. But with NTFS this will not happen. When Windows NT 3.1 (i think it was) came out I did this very test. Get the computer doing something so its using the disk and unplug the power.

At the time, I did this to a Sun Solaris system and it took nearly an hour to check the filesystem and lost some data. But on the PC with windows NT (ie. NTFS) it took about 3 seconds to check the filesystem and then booted right up. No data lose.

journalling is your friend. ;)

[CyberDyneSystems]

If you ever intend to attach the drive to a system running Win(* etc.. then maybe FAT32.

Otherwise.. NTFS

[CyberDyneSystems]

Mac OSX supports NTFS. >>>reference<<< (http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/apple/macosxcombinedupdate_10_3_6.html)

GOOD to know!