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The difference between FAT32 and NTFS |
Fattierob Vice Admiral
Joined: April 25, 2003 Posts: 4059
| Posted: 2006-12-03 00:45  
I had always toyed with the idea of upgrading my FAT32 drives to NTFS. I had heard it was far superior after all, and allowed encryption and compression (amongst other things)
So what is the difference between a FAT32 drive and NTFS drive?
By just converting my C: drive (40gb- 37.8 actual GB) from FAT32 to NTFS, I gained about 3gb. or 8% of my drive back.
Now as it goes through compression, I wonder how much more space i'll get back. Makes you really wonder how much space is 'wasted' due to old HDD formats. I suggest anybody who still have FAT32 drives convert them to NTFS for a great boost in space. And pick up norton PartitionMagic 8.
PS: Norton Finally made a good product! All I had to do to convert to NTFS was click on three butons! Yes!
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$wiss Admiral
Joined: November 08, 2002 Posts: 640 From: Prancing in the meadows with Jesus
| Posted: 2006-12-03 00:55  
Right out of the box I formatted my 320gb external to NTFS. Lost all preinstalled software, but oh well.
Cheers
It is better
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Coeus Grand Admiral Sundered Weimeriners
Joined: March 22, 2006 Posts: 2815 From: Philly
| Posted: 2006-12-03 01:27  
Its faster, more stable with Windows XP environment, and the security & recovery is more reliable with it.
NTFS!
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Leviatan Cadet
Joined: April 22, 2005 Posts: 186
| Posted: 2006-12-03 02:50  
NTFS is not properly Linux compatible, so I use NTFS on my WinXP drives and FAT32 on my Linux drives, as both Linux and WinXP can use FAT32, I can transfer files between the drives by meddling around with the FAT32 drive.
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[2006] - Codex09 Admiral
Joined: August 16, 2006 Posts: 187 From: Sydney Australia
| Posted: 2006-12-03 04:43  
NTFS is more reliable and as stated in the other posts b4 this one it has a lot of advantages.
If you want to convert your drive from FAT32 to NTFS there should be a util that came with XP which will do it for you without you loosing any of the info you have on the drive. From memory it is called convert. If you type in help convert in the run option it should give you the list of commands.
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-Daedalus- Grand Admiral
Joined: September 26, 2006 Posts: 549
| Posted: 2006-12-03 04:46  
compression will slow down he performance of your drive.
HD's are cheap these days. Why not just get another drive?
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Ship-Of-Fools 2nd Rear Admiral Angry Mob
Joined: June 10, 2004 Posts: 415 From: USA
| Posted: 2006-12-03 05:58  
I thought FAT32 was just a discription of the programmer that designed the file system...
my bad
to be honest, all 4 of my HDDs are NTFS, I have never had a complaint
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Fattierob Vice Admiral
Joined: April 25, 2003 Posts: 4059
| Posted: 2006-12-03 12:36  
Quote:
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On 2006-12-03 04:46, bc796d wrote:
compression will slow down he performance of your drive.
HD's are cheap these days. Why not just get another drive?
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I don't compress the more commonly used stuff.
but I don't have any money at all. All of my last games i've gotten, are...how do you say, 'free'
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Glimmer Fleet Admiral
Joined: February 05, 2006 Posts: 54 From: Hertfordshire
| Posted: 2006-12-03 12:43  
Haha FAT32 ? I remembr FAT16 !!! But I moved with times I use a Raptor. Reliable & fast.................nice guarantee too.
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Nemain Cadet
Joined: September 18, 2006 Posts: 43
| Posted: 2006-12-03 12:45  
Quote:
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PS: Norton Finally made a good product! All I had to do to convert to NTFS was click on three butons! Yes!
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Norton didnt make it. They bought it from PowerQuest. I refuse to use any norton product. I use Powerquest Partitionmagic 8.0
Also, with winXP
Right click My Computer
Click Manage
Click Disk Management
This tool is basically the same as partition magic
[ This Message was edited by: Nemain on 2006-12-03 12:47 ]
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JackCrackerMan Fleet Admiral Sundered Weimeriners
Joined: February 13, 2003 Posts: 169
| Posted: 2006-12-03 12:58  
FAT32 is primarily a server file design. It defaults the cluster size of your bytes to be more than that of NTFS (Which you can change with Partition Magic). Also, FAT32 doesn't support drives that are bigger (I don't remember the size ).
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Ramius Fleet Admiral Agents
Joined: January 12, 2002 Posts: 894 From: Ramius
| Posted: 2006-12-03 14:34  
4 gb I believe.
[ This Message was edited by: Ramisaur on 2006-12-03 14:41 ]
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Ramius Fleet Admiral Agents
Joined: January 12, 2002 Posts: 894 From: Ramius
| Posted: 2006-12-03 14:43  
Er, clarification, 4 gb file size is the max on FAT32. Drive size can be up to 8 tb.
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Light-of-Aurora Grand Admiral
Joined: December 01, 2003 Posts: 602 From: NJ, USA
| Posted: 2006-12-03 16:32  
Hmm.. I have a friend who would like to know this.
I'm not that computer-savy, so I've never heard of NTFS. :/
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Reeves-81 Grand Admiral Pitch Black
Joined: January 24, 2006 Posts: 141 From: Canada
| Posted: 2006-12-03 16:49  
the NTFS format has been out for 6 or 7 YEARS............ :|
Just learning about it now? Ok. well its better, that is all.
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