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FAT 32 vs. NTFS

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Name: Jon
Date: June 15, 2002 at 19:03:40 Pacific
Comment:

When doing a clean install of WinXP, one has a choice of either using FAT 32 or NTFS (you also have this choice with Win 2000). Is there a website that explains the differences in simple english? If I use NTFS, can I go back to FAT 32? Thanks

Thanks



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Response Number 1
Name: wes
Date: June 15, 2002 at 19:17:41 Pacific
Reply:

If you have a dual win9x/XP system use Fat32, if not use NTFS.


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Response Number 2
Name: Jon (another one)
Date: June 15, 2002 at 19:20:34 Pacific
Reply:

NTFS is faster, more stable, safer, and most important, with security.

FAT32: no security implemented, everything in it is public, slower but the best it provide is you can boot a dos disk if your system just crashed and (possibily) backup data at that stage.

Normally I will put the system to NTFS partition and another partition in FAT32 for data storage/ghost image

See this for datails
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q100108

Jon


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Response Number 3
Name: Bert
Date: June 15, 2002 at 23:39:36 Pacific
Reply:

You can go back to fat by formatting your harddisk. There's no other way.
format /fs:fat32

I prefer NTFS

Succes,

Bert


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Response Number 4
Name: Sanjaya Sugiarto (by Sanjaya)
Date: June 15, 2002 at 23:52:20 Pacific
Reply:


I agree with response no 2.
I myself prefer NTFS on my system and FAT32 for data storage (because i use also Linux and Linux can only read NTFS and cant write it).


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Response Number 5
Name: dzahed
Date: June 16, 2002 at 00:18:16 Pacific
Reply:

Win 98 SE can access the data on my XP NTFS drive.
Doesn't seem to work the other way though.



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Response Number 6
Name: Fox
Date: June 16, 2002 at 02:07:27 Pacific
Reply:

You can revert back to NTFS but you need a 3rd party software package like Power Quest's Partition Magic.

Jon has the best solution. I do the same but have a separate fat32 hard drive for images only.

Regards,

Fox


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Response Number 7
Name: Jon (the first one)
Date: June 16, 2002 at 05:55:48 Pacific
Reply:

Thanks for all of your responses. I like Jon's (the other one) solution, and never even considered that option. I'll do that when I upgrade my hard drive in a few weeks. One more question, though....how big a partition should I set up for my system? I'll have a 20 GB drive after the upgrade.

Thanks again for all of your answers!


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Response Number 8
Name: 2nd Jon
Date: June 16, 2002 at 11:17:58 Pacific
Reply:

It depends, if you decided to have a stable workstation and you won't install many new software frequently, normally a 10/10 will be fine.

If you are a gamer, and you want to install many games in your system, I think 15/5 will be better.

I use the first approach since I put many MP3 to my "DATA"~ huh...

My suggestion: Normally I will move the swap file to a seperate partition (at the end of the disk, about RAM_size x 1.5 large)or put in drive D, this will cause less fragmentation of system after your system is up for sometime.


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