An FAT32 and NTFS Question for the Experts here...

On Sun, 12 Aug 2007 12:18:24 -0700, Cordelia wrote:

Personally I have only noticed two backsides with FAT32:

1) It does not accept files larger than approx. 4 GB - a problem if you
want to store DVD images.
2) At startup on a FAT32 disc, Windows is very keen to error-check the
disc if it wasn't shut down properly before. I don't think this happen
with NTFS.
3) When installing Windows XP - the installer offers to reformat the
drive to NTFS..

My conclusion is that there must be some backside to FAT32 that I don't
know!
But what is it?

-Is it more prone to errors?
-Does it make reading the content slower?
-Anything else?


http://www.ntfs.com/ntfs_vs_fat.htm

On Aug 12, 8:18 pm, Cordelia wrote:
Hi guys - This is something I have wanted to learn about for a long time.

Some background before I get to the question:
-------------------------------
-I like FAT32 because I can easily look at what's on the drive if I boot
into DOS (which is what I would do if I had some problem with the drive)

-So I like to keep the OS on a smallish disk partitioned as FAT32. On
this disc I keep NTFS Pro, so I can look at the NTFS drives if necessary.

I don't recall the details about the alternatives.

There are programs, like NTFSDOS, that let you work from DOS on an
NTFS drive. Amending files - not just reading. You could edit boot.ini
for example. The recovery console doesn't let you edit files, as
you've noticed, the recovery console doesn't double as booting to dos.
So NTFSDOS and other such programs are very useful there.
There's also Win XP PE. That lets you work with your NTFS drives from
a Windows you boot off a CD.
Some people download these things illegally off P2P apps like kazaa,
unfortunately.

-Somebody I worked with in 2000 told me that for home PCs it was ideal
to keep a small (ish) C drive so that you didn't loose too much if you
end up having to re-format the drive that the OS is on... It seems to
make sense.. Using FAT32 for this disc also seemed to make sense..


Well, having a partitiong for the OS and a partitiong for data, is
what many people do.

I have actually used an alternative solution..
Have a backups directory with all program installation files (the
setup EXEs), and with data. I can copy that directory to another
drive. So I have 2 copies of it.
If I want to format the partition with the OS. No problem.




-But now with the way licencing and other things are done in Windows, it
seems that most apps have to be re-installed again after reinstall of
the OS, even if they are still there...! They don't work unless it's
with the same installation of Win that they were first installed on.. So
I am not sure how valid his advice still is is - or not. But I still
stick to it still, because I don't know of any setup that is better.
--------------------------------
OK, so:


dunno. Maybe I use less annoying software!

-My OS drive is 60GB, exclusively for OS and program installations.
-I have 3 other large drives for my music collections, films, misc other
bits and bobs that I keep on the computer.
-Two of these were formatted to NTFS by me after I put them in.
-One is an external USB drive that was pre-formatted to FAT32. I only
realised this when I tried to store a very large file on the disc and it
wouldn't let me.
I don't understand why they would pre-format an external storage disc to
FAT32??
---------------
Personally I have only noticed two backsides with FAT32:

1) It does not accept files larger than approx. 4 GB - a problem if you
want to store DVD images.

i guess so. I wonder what people do with HDD images then? Always use
NTFS?

2) At startup on a FAT32 disc, Windows is very keen to error-check the
disc if it wasn't shut down properly before. I don't think this happen
with NTFS.

I hadn't noticed it being more keen one way or the other. There is
some issue of windows doing that. When windows is not shut down
correctly. Or just doing that anyway. And it can be dealt with. Maybe
something in the registry.

I think win98 had a similar issue, and in boot.ini you could say
something like autoscan=0 or 1 if you want it to check every time. I
think boot.ini has something similar. See q_q_ 's post here
thread: Can you enable the boot menu in XP?
http://tinyurl.com/335hax
Kelly's korner may have some registry hack to deal with that or a
related issue.

3) When installing Windows XP - the installer offers to reformat the
drive to NTFS..

My conclusion is that there must be some backside to FAT32 that I don't
know!
But what is it?

-Is it more prone to errors?
-Does it make reading the content slower?
-Anything else?


Apparently NTFS allows for the windows NT security features, maybe in
terms of allowing or denying some users or groups of users access a
file.

http://cquirke.mvps.org/ntfs.htm
confirms a bit of what i've heard
NTFS may be better at storing files, in that the file size on disk
isn't much bigger than the file itself. Maybe !

FAT32 has some kind of 137GB issue (I don't know if that's when
running an OS on it, or even just using it for data)
So if having that big of FAT32, then if the first of these characters
is right, it sounds a bit worrying
Google brought up
http://forums.pcworld.co.nz/showthread.php?t=57001
"you will need to keep them less than 137GB or Scandisk and Defrag
will corrupt the data on partitions greater than 137GB. "
alternatively another character says
"it cant be expanded... the FAT32 limit is 137GB. AFAIK, NTFS has one
that is much much larger though."


Also. It could be that win xp doesn't want you to run win xp on a
partition than 32GB if FAT32. Not sure why. There is or was some
issue that it won't let you create it larger, you have to resize it
with Partition magic. But i'm not sure why MS would make such a
restriction - if there's a technical reason.

Hi guys - This is something I have wanted to learn about for a long time.

Some background before I get to the question:
-------------------------------
-I like FAT32 because I can easily look at what's on the drive if I boot
into DOS (which is what I would do if I had some problem with the drive)

-So I like to keep the OS on a smallish disk partitioned as FAT32. On
this disc I keep NTFS Pro, so I can look at the NTFS drives if necessary.

-Somebody I worked with in 2000 told me that for home PCs it was ideal
to keep a small (ish) C drive so that you didn't loose too much if you
end up having to re-format the drive that the OS is on... It seems to
make sense.. Using FAT32 for this disc also seemed to make sense..

-But now with the way licencing and other things are done in Windows, it
seems that most apps have to be re-installed again after reinstall of
the OS, even if they are still there...! They don't work unless it's
with the same installation of Win that they were first installed on.. So
I am not sure how valid his advice still is is - or not. But I still
stick to it still, because I don't know of any setup that is better.
--------------------------------
OK, so:

-My OS drive is 60GB, exclusively for OS and program installations.
-I have 3 other large drives for my music collections, films, misc other
bits and bobs that I keep on the computer.
-Two of these were formatted to NTFS by me after I put them in.
-One is an external USB drive that was pre-formatted to FAT32. I only
realised this when I tried to store a very large file on the disc and it
wouldn't let me.
I don't understand why they would pre-format an external storage disc to
FAT32??
---------------
Personally I have only noticed two backsides with FAT32:

1) It does not accept files larger than approx. 4 GB - a problem if you
want to store DVD images.
2) At startup on a FAT32 disc, Windows is very keen to error-check the
disc if it wasn't shut down properly before. I don't think this happen
with NTFS.
3) When installing Windows XP - the installer offers to reformat the
drive to NTFS..

My conclusion is that there must be some backside to FAT32 that I don't
know!
But what is it?

-Is it more prone to errors?
-Does it make reading the content slower?
-Anything else?

Hi Ken.. thanks for the URL . It's a very good page.
Some of the things in the table went a bit over my head.

But it was interesting to see the bit about "FAULT TOLERANCE". Although
I don't know exactly what it refers to, I guess it's a bad thing that it
is 'minimal' for FAT32. I wonder what that means in reality?

I also noticed that "BUILT IN SECURITY" and "RECOVERABILITY" are
non-existant on FAT32 whereas they are present on NTFS. Both sound like
useful things, particularly the Recoverability. I wonder what that's all
about.

The "ALTERNATE STREAM" that NTFS apparently has sounds good too,
although I don't know what it is!

There is a link to a FAQ where I was interested to read this about the
SPEED COMPARISON:

QUOTE: "NTFS has much more built-in features than FAT, so generally it
is a bit slower.
However it depends on many factors such as cluster size, average file
size, etc.
For example, NTFS can keep small files inside MFT entry, so if the file
size is less than cluster size, most likely it will be accessed much
faster on NTFS than on FAT. Generally speaking the performance of NTFS
on large volumes is higher than performance of FAT32. NTFS performance
on small volumes is lower than performance of FAT/FAT32."

I wonder what they count as large vs small?

Cordelia -


Ken wrote:
On Sun, 12 Aug 2007 12:18:24 -0700, Cordelia wrote:

Personally I have only noticed two backsides with FAT32:

1) It does not accept files larger than approx. 4 GB - a problem if you
want to store DVD images.
2) At startup on a FAT32 disc, Windows is very keen to error-check the
disc if it wasn't shut down properly before. I don't think this happen
with NTFS.
3) When installing Windows XP - the installer offers to reformat the
drive to NTFS..

My conclusion is that there must be some backside to FAT32 that I don't
know!
But what is it?

-Is it more prone to errors?
-Does it make reading the content slower?
-Anything else?


http://www.ntfs.com/ntfs_vs_fat.htm

On Sun, 12 Aug 2007 13:23:48 -0700, Cordelia
wrote:

Personally I have only noticed two backsides with FAT32:

1) It does not accept files larger than approx. 4 GB - a problem if you
want to store DVD images.

Yes, or system backups in particular... only you will know
if 4GB limit is important to your use.


2) At startup on a FAT32 disc, Windows is very keen to error-check the
disc if it wasn't shut down properly before. I don't think this happen
with NTFS.


Yes it does happen with NTFS, this behavior is due to the
incomplete shutdown without any regard to filesystem used.

3) When installing Windows XP - the installer offers to reformat the
drive to NTFS..

.... because in some uses, NTFS has useful features, and of
course because NTFS is a Microsoft proprietary format so it
helps just a little bit to preserve a closed market
dominance for them... which is good in some ways to preserve
a unified PC platform but bad in other ways. Time will
tell.



My conclusion is that there must be some backside to FAT32 that I don't
know!
But what is it?

-Is it more prone to errors?

No, but it is less able to recover from them.
The main problem would be if the system is interrupted due
to power fluctuation or substantial instability, although
many types of instability won't be guarded against with NTFS
either.


-Does it make reading the content slower?

Sometimes a little slower, sometimes a little faster, it is
not a very significant difference compared to any other
factors.


But it was interesting to see the bit about "FAULT TOLERANCE". Although
I don't know exactly what it refers to, I guess it's a bad thing that it
is 'minimal' for FAT32. I wonder what that means in reality?

It means very little, because if your data is important
enough to care about you will have made backups. If your
system uptime is important and your system is severely
instable or has bad power to it, resolution of these factors
is necessary. NTFS is an improvement, better than FAT32 in
this regard, but ideally you will never have a problem where
you notice any difference.

Even so, by default NTFS is superior in this way and you
would probably only want to choose FAT32 if it's virtues
outweigh those of NTFS. Particularly the virtue of FAT32 is
that it is far more universally supported by OS other than
Windows NT (2K/XP/Vista)



I also noticed that "BUILT IN SECURITY" and "RECOVERABILITY" are
non-existant on FAT32 whereas they are present on NTFS. Both sound like
useful things, particularly the Recoverability. I wonder what that's all
about.

Either you know you need the security or it won't matter in
your uses. Don't idealize a filesystem, pick based on
exactly what you know you need for your individual uses.



The "ALTERNATE STREAM" that NTFS apparently has sounds good too,
although I don't know what it is!

You probably don't know all the fine details of FAT32
either, so pick based on the major features which you have
already listed and have a reasonable understanding about.

Forget about performance, there are far too many other
factors in a PC that make the filesystem performance
difference trivial.

Bottom line - either you definitely need to be able to
access the filesystem from an OS (like DOS, or something
else) that doesn't support NTFS, or you are better off using
NTFS. Often I do need access to drives from other OS so I
have quite a few FAT32 formatted drives here and there...
and they work fine, for the most part in regular use you
won't know the difference until you have a specific need for
a feature in NTFS. All you really have to do is account
for your needs, or you could just follow the crowd and use
NTFS since it is the default filesystem for Windows today.

On Sun, 12 Aug 2007 13:23:48 -0700, Cordelia thoughfully wrote:

Hi Ken.. thanks for the URL . It's a very good page. Some of the things
in the table went a bit over my head.

But it was interesting to see the bit about "FAULT TOLERANCE". Although
I don't know exactly what it refers to, I guess it's a bad thing that it
is 'minimal' for FAT32. I wonder what that means in reality?

I also noticed that "BUILT IN SECURITY" and "RECOVERABILITY" are
non-existant on FAT32 whereas they are present on NTFS. Both sound like
useful things, particularly the Recoverability. I wonder what that's all
about.

The "ALTERNATE STREAM" that NTFS apparently has sounds good too,
although I don't know what it is!

There is a link to a FAQ where I was interested to read this about the
SPEED COMPARISON:

QUOTE: "NTFS has much more built-in features than FAT, so generally it
is a bit slower.
However it depends on many factors such as cluster size, average file
size, etc.
For example, NTFS can keep small files inside MFT entry, so if the file
size is less than cluster size, most likely it will be accessed much
faster on NTFS than on FAT. Generally speaking the performance of NTFS
on large volumes is higher than performance of FAT32. NTFS performance
on small volumes is lower than performance of FAT/FAT32."

I wonder what they count as large vs small?

Cordelia -

I think the performance of a Fat32 file system over NTFS ends around
40G. On the whole though a 40G drive overall performs as fast as newer
large drives regardless of OS or file system, real hard drive access
hasn't kept up with system performance.

The best advantage of NTFS over FAT32 is that you can store larger than
2GB files on NTFS but not FAT32. In fact I'm not even sure that your OS
on a FAT32 would allow you to transfer a 4GB file to your NTFS volume.
Very large files are useful for video, databases, backup files for
examples.

"Cordelia" wrote in message
...
[snip]
Personally I have only noticed two backsides with FAT32:

huh, huh, huh - hey Beavis - She said 'Fat backside' !!

On Mon, 13 Aug 2007 06:46:17 GMT, jaster
wrote:


I think the performance of a Fat32 file system over NTFS ends around
40G. On the whole though a 40G drive overall performs as fast as newer
large drives regardless of OS or file system, real hard drive access
hasn't kept up with system performance.

??

There is no 40GB drive that performs as fast as even the
cheapest modern name-brand drive models. Maybe a 40GB SCSI
will have as low a latency due to a higher RPM but otherwise
a typical 400GB drive today is at least 50% faster.



The best advantage of NTFS over FAT32 is that you can store larger than
2GB files on NTFS but not FAT32.

FAT32 limit is 4GB not 2GB.


In fact I'm not even sure that your OS
on a FAT32 would allow you to transfer a 4GB file to your NTFS volume.

No matter where the 4GB file is, if the whole file is there
the OS will transfer it fine to an NTFS volume. It makes no
difference whether the OS is installed on a FAT32 volume,
only that the source and destination volumes used a
filesystem that can store 4GB files.

The one exception I can think of might be that if this file
was being downloaded by a browser that is set to store it's
temporary internet files in a folder on the FAT32 partition
(for example, Internet Explorer does default to using same
partition as the OS resides on), then there would be an
error trying to write at the 4GB point in the file download.

Thus in such an IE situation you would want to first changen
the location of the IE temporary internet files location to
an NTFS volume, or use a browser that can directly download
to an NTFS destination volume instead of caching it on the
hard drive then recopying it elsewhere (which is sometimes a
rather annoying design for IE to have).

On Mon, 13 Aug 2007 12:03:51 -0400, kony thoughfully wrote:

On Mon, 13 Aug 2007 06:46:17 GMT, jaster wrote:


I think the performance of a Fat32 file system over NTFS ends around
40G. On the whole though a 40G drive overall performs as fast as newer
large drives regardless of OS or file system, real hard drive access
hasn't kept up with system performance.

??

There is no 40GB drive that performs as fast as even the cheapest modern
name-brand drive models. Maybe a 40GB SCSI will have as low a latency
due to a higher RPM but otherwise a typical 400GB drive today is at
least 50% faster.



Not for technical specs but for practical overall speed a 40G is as fast
a larger drives. A given fact that a smaller drive boots faster than the
larger drives.


The best advantage of NTFS over FAT32 is that you can store larger than
2GB files on NTFS but not FAT32.

FAT32 limit is 4GB not 2GB.

Ok.


In fact I'm not even sure that your OS on a FAT32 would allow you to
transfer a 4GB file to your NTFS volume.

No matter where the 4GB file is, if the whole file is there the OS will
transfer it fine to an NTFS volume. It makes no difference whether the
OS is installed on a FAT32 volume, only that the source and destination
volumes used a filesystem that can store 4GB files.

The one exception I can think of might be that if this file was being
downloaded by a browser that is set to store it's temporary internet
files in a folder on the FAT32 partition (for example, Internet Explorer
does default to using same partition as the OS resides on), then there
would be an error trying to write at the 4GB point in the file download.

Thus in such an IE situation you would want to first changen the
location of the IE temporary internet files location to an NTFS volume,
or use a browser that can directly download to an NTFS destination
volume instead of caching it on the hard drive then recopying it
elsewhere (which is sometimes a rather annoying design for IE to have).

That's what I said, his OS on Fat32 may not allow 4gb transfers.

On Mon, 13 Aug 2007 20:03:45 GMT, jaster
wrote:


Not for technical specs but for practical overall speed a 40G is as fast
a larger drives. A given fact that a smaller drive boots faster than the
larger drives.

It's really, really slower in every use, keeping everything
else the same (partitioning off the larger drive so there
isn't some other large filestore causing more fragmentation
on the larger drive). Some 40GB drives were as fast as
their contemporary 60-100GB models but after that point and
for the last couple years any randomly chosen name-brand
drive is faster at every use than a 7200 RPM or 5400RPM 40GB
drive..

Thus in such an IE situation you would want to first changen the
location of the IE temporary internet files location to an NTFS volume,
or use a browser that can directly download to an NTFS destination
volume instead of caching it on the hard drive then recopying it
elsewhere (which is sometimes a rather annoying design for IE to have).

That's what I said, his OS on Fat32 may not allow 4gb transfers.

.... but weren't you suggesting this even when the
destination partition is NTFS? The source of the file
couldn't be FAT32 or it wouldn't be a 4GB file, and the
destination couldn't be FAT32 to hold the 4GB file, but
whether the OS doing the transfer is on a FAT32 partition
won't matter.