NTFS or FAT32

[SkyDiver]

Hi,
I'm thinking of switching over to NTFS. What do you all think? I've heard that it works better for bigger drives.

I've got two disks.
Disk #1 = 160 GB in two partitions.
Part #1 = 60 GB
Part #2 = 100 GB
Disk #2 = 15 GB

I use the first drive for the OS and program files (and music, video, games, etc. on the 2nd partition).
Disk #2 is where I keep all my data.

So, should I convert Disk #1 to NTFS? Is there anything I should worry about? I use Norton Ghost 2002 for backups right now. The manual says it is compatible w/ NTFS.

Thanks,

 

[Laymen]

Please for the love of God change to NTFS, its added file security, added stability, larger disks and partitions possible and God knows what else. And no nothing will go wrong, norton should have no problem whatsoever picking up on that ntfs disk, even in dos.

 

[SkyDiver]

Wow Laymen,
You feel pretty strongly about this!

 

[SickBeast]

I thought that if you were a "layman" it meant you knew nothing about what you were talking about. An Average Joe if you will. He will probably regret that nickname once he is a guru.

In any case, yes, NTFS is a little bit better. It depends on your hard drive too though. Some drives are faster in FAT32, and some are better within NTFS. Check storagereview.com to be sure in your case. As Laymen said, you may need NTFS for the larger partition sizes possible.

 

[Auric]

I have never heard of this performance difference, particularly any case in which NTFS was measurably faster without changing default cluster sizes which I believe is the primary reason for any difference in favor of FAT32. Anyhoo, there is no practical advantage to FAT32 except in the case of ROM drives where NTFS cannot function sans write access.

 

[SkyDiver]

Hey SickBeast,
I looked on that site, but couldn't see where it mentions NTFS or FAT32.

 

[SickBeast]

I'm pretty sure if you look at their hard drive benchmarks in their reviews, they note whether it was done in NTFS or FAT32. They used to benchmark both for every review, I'm not sure if they still do it.

 

[Pariah]

Originally posted by: SkyDiver
Hey SickBeast,
I looked on that site, but couldn't see where it mentions NTFS or FAT32.

All SR testing is done in NTFS. Years ago they used to test both FAT32 and NTFS, but there really isn't a point any more.

NTFS does work better with larger partitions. The size of the drive doesn't really matter. For large scale storage, NTFS is the smarter choice.

 

[CraigRT]

every drive I format gets NTFS on it.. I like the added security if that's even at all helpful (it usually turns out to be handy)