I just purchased and started using a new external drive when I noticed that it is using the FAT32 file system while all of my other drives run NTFS. It's been sometime since I've seen the FAT32 system used and somewhere in the back of my mind I seem to recall that it is recommended to reformat to the NTFS system.
Any comments on this?
PS: the drives that I transferred the data from are still available so reformatting would just mean recopying the data.
In my opinion, FAT32 will be just fine for document and/or image file storage. You don't really need NTFS unless you plan install Windows XP, Windows Server, or Vista on it to use as a boot drive (not recommended for an external drive, though)
The real advantage of NTFS is the smaller cluster size which reduces waste of space. It's basically your choice, but you're safe with FAT32.
Preston is mostly correct, however there is one great safety advantage to NFTS in that it is a journaled filesystem, which means that in many cases it's able to recover data automatically, unlike FAT32 which is more prone to file corruptions.
The only advantage to FAT32 in my opinion is that it can be shared in read/write mode with other operating systems. If you need to plug your drive to a Mac for example, FAT32 will work just fine. NTFS will work in read-only mode.
Guy wrote, "...one great safety advantage to NFTS in that it is a journaled filesystem, which means that in many cases it's able to recover data automatically, unlike FAT32 which is more prone to file corruptions.".
I didn't know that. Even crusty old dudes like me can still learn new stuff!
Rob, since you have the data available to copy over to the new drive, reformatting it to NTFS is a better way to go unless you'll need to connect to a Mac, and must have read/write capability.
-P
Posted by Nat Coalson on March 31, 2009 at 12:32 AM
I use Mac and Windows machines together all the time so Fat32 is still the norm for me... with reliable backups and good file management practices I see no problem sticking with Fat32 in most situations.
Discussion
5 repliesAny comments on this?
PS: the drives that I transferred the data from are still available so reformatting would just mean recopying the data.
The real advantage of NTFS is the smaller cluster size which reduces waste of space. It's basically your choice, but you're safe with FAT32.
File Systems Article from MS
-P
The only advantage to FAT32 in my opinion is that it can be shared in read/write mode with other operating systems. If you need to plug your drive to a Mac for example, FAT32 will work just fine. NTFS will work in read-only mode.
Guy
I didn't know that. Even crusty old dudes like me can still learn new stuff!
Rob, since you have the data available to copy over to the new drive, reformatting it to NTFS is a better way to go unless you'll need to connect to a Mac, and must have read/write capability.
-P