WHICH FILE SYSTEM BEST FOR GAMES - NTFS OR FAT32?

[brigden]

Which file system is best for gaming?

 

[Nothinman]

NTFS is better for everything.

 

[vash]

I don't see a single reason not to use NTFS if you are using an NT-based OS.

vash

 

[clicknext]

NTFS is better for OSes that support it unless you're using linux, in which case you wouldn't be playing games anyway.

 

[amdskip]

NTFS is not better for everything.

http://anandtech.com/guides/viewfaq.html?i=63

read that

 

[N11]

Originally posted by: amdskip
NTFS is not better for everything.

<a href="http://anandtech.com/guides/viewfaq.html?i=63">http://anandtech.com/guides/viewfaq.html?i=63</a>

read that

that write-up basically stipulates that NTFS is better for everything.

The only time I ever take fat into consideration is when the file system must be readable/writeable by various operating systems.

 

[brigden]

Thanks guys.

Can I format an drive NTFS and have it as one partition, say a 20GB HDD formatted as one 20GB HDD? Or, do I have to format it into two or more volumes?

 

[Mem]

Can I format an drive NTFS and have it as one partition, say a 20GB HDD formatted as one 20GB HDD? Or, do I have to format it into two or more volumes?

Either,I have a 40Gb HD which is formated into one big 40Gb NTFS partition.

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: brigden
Thanks guys.

Can I format an drive NTFS and have it as one partition, say a 20GB HDD formatted as one 20GB HDD? Or, do I have to format it into two or more volumes?

There is one main reason to have a drive partitioned into two segments. Thus, your operating system and programs can be installed in the first segment, and your data can be kept in the second. Then, if it becomes necessary to reinstall the OS, you don't need to back up and restore all of your data (though you should back up the important stuff anyway).

If this doesn't really matter to you, then just set up the drive to have one big [NTFS] partition.

 

[DimZiE]

Can I format an drive NTFS and have it as one partition, say a 20GB HDD formatted as one 20GB HDD? Or, do I have to format it into two or more volumes?

yes, assuming your using 2000,XP. which uses NTFS 5

 

[Codewiz]

Originally posted by: DimZiE

Can I format an drive NTFS and have it as one partition, say a 20GB HDD formatted as one 20GB HDD? Or, do I have to format it into two or more volumes?

yes, assuming your using 2000,XP. which uses NTFS 5

If he is asking these types of questions the likely hood of him installing NT4 is nil.

 

[spyordie007]

Originally posted by: brigden
Thanks guys.

Can I format an drive NTFS and have it as one partition, say a 20GB HDD formatted as one 20GB HDD? Or, do I have to format it into two or more volumes?

you certanly can do it with 1 single volume, FYI under NTFS, the maximum thoretical size of a partition (volume) is in fact 2 to the 64th power.

I found this interesting article while searching for the exact figure:
link

-Spy

 

[WannaFly]

I would urge against NTFS unless your networked to a large network.

Reasons:
1. Beacuse if you cant get windows to boot, it'll be ALOT harder to recover your data. You wont be able to boot from a normal DOS boot disk and read data from your drive.
2. Fat32 works fine, and linux reads fat32

 

[spyordie007]

Originally posted by: WannaFly
I would urge against NTFS unless your networked to a large network.

Reasons:
1. Beacuse if you cant get windows to boot, it'll be ALOT harder to recover your data. You wont be able to boot from a normal DOS boot disk and read data from your drive.
2. Fat32 works fine, and linux reads fat32

Do you mean networked to a large network such as the internet?

None of those are good reasons:
1. Use the Windows 2000 or XP disk, it's called recovery console.
2. Fat32 works okay if you have a small HD and you live in a bubble. NTFS works much better if you have a larger HD, have multiple people using the computer, are connected to any network; not to mention that it's a journaled file system which beats an allocation table hands down. BTW just about every major Linux distro reads NTFS "out of the box" and the ability to read NTFS could get added to any nix install, and so does windows 9x and DOS for that matter (with 3rd party NTFS drivers)...

Please read the FAQs

-Spy

 

[lowtech1]

Fat12
























Just kidding.
Win16 - Fat32
Win32 - NTFS

 

[Nothinman]

I would urge against NTFS unless your networked to a large network.

Reasons:
1. Beacuse if you cant get windows to boot, it'll be ALOT harder to recover your data. You wont be able to boot from a normal DOS boot disk and read data from your drive.
2. Fat32 works fine, and linux reads fat32

Both of those reason are invalid.

1. The recovery console can fix most things, if you need to backup before a format NTFS4DOS has a read-only version that you can copy your data with and a commercial one that supports writing if you need that.
2. FAT sucks, it's slow, old and deprecated even by MS. Linux reads NTFS just fine, it's only writing that is dangerous.

BTW just about every major Linux distro reads NTFS "out of the box" and the ability to read NTFS could get added to any nix install,

Not really. RedHat (probably the most major distro in the states) doesn't include NTFS support with their default kernel. And as for 'any nix', I don't think any of the BSDs have NTFS support, not that I've really looked hard.

Just kidding.
Win16 - Fat32
Win32 - NTFS

Windows 3.11 doesn't support 32-bit FAT, Win9X is technically Win32.

 

[spyordie007]

Not really. RedHat (probably the most major distro in the states) doesn't include NTFS support with their default kernel. And as for 'any nix', I don't think any of the BSDs have NTFS support, not that I've really looked hard.

Okay so it was a bit of an overstatement, but my point was the same as yours (that you can definetly access NTFS from linux, contrary to what "wannafly" seems to think).

-Spy

 

[Davegod]

the guy says "for gaming" so i imagine linux, large networks etc isnt too important here.

I have no clue as to the answer btw, just chipping in

actually one think i did notice is pcmark2002 dropped 20% in the hdd test between w98se (fat32) and XP (NTFS). cant say i noticed any difference ingame though.

 

[Derango]

NTFS. Only reason you should even have a fat32 partition these days is if you're dual booting (or running as your primary) an OS that doesn't support NTFS as a file system.

 

[elkinm]

NTFS is nice, stable and quite good all around but it has its drawbacks. You cannot dual boot it with an old version of windows or other bootable dos programs which is a problem. But I won't be going to NTFS for a while simply dew to the security risks involved. Not the risks of others accessing my data but actualy loosing or accessing my data. NTFS can block usage and is useless if you have any problems with an encrypted volume. Even if it is not encripted, I have seen many problems with accessing NTFS partitions. So if your primary concern is to keep your data private and secure with loos preferable to loss of privacy then use NTFS, but if there are any concerns about data loss then I would still stay with FAT32.

 

[Mem]

NTFS is nice, stable and quite good all around but it has its drawbacks. You cannot dual boot it with an old version of windows or other bootable dos programs which is a problem.

PowerQuest PartitionMagic 8 lets you do it ,comes with BootMagic ,handy for multiple booting between different Operating Systems.

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: elkinm
NTFS is nice, stable and quite good all around but it has its drawbacks. You cannot dual boot it with an old version of windows or other bootable dos programs which is a problem. But I won't be going to NTFS for a while simply dew to the security risks involved. Not the risks of others accessing my data but actualy loosing or accessing my data. NTFS can block usage and is useless if you have any problems with an encrypted volume. Even if it is not encripted, I have seen many problems with accessing NTFS partitions. So if your primary concern is to keep your data private and secure with loos preferable to loss of privacy then use NTFS, but if there are any concerns about data loss then I would still stay with FAT32.

That's pretty wrong. NTFS has security, but you don't loose access to the data if you move a hard disk from one NT machine to another. You may have to log in as Admin on the new machine and reset some permissions, but the chances of that happening are very slim, thus rendering the advantages of NTFS much greater than the disadvantages. Encrypted File System requires a bit of knowledge on the user's part, specifically in the area of backing up the keys. If you don't want to learn how to handle it, just don't use it. Sorry, but NTFS also happens to be more reliable than FAT32. The only time I would not trust my data to an NTFS partition is if I needed to exchange it with another OS (Linux or BSD, for example).

 

[Nothinman]

You cannot dual boot it with an old version of windows or other bootable dos programs which is a problem.

You can dualboot just fine, you can even read NTFS volumes in DOS and Win9X with NTF4DOS.

NTFS can block usage and is useless if you have any problems with an encrypted volume

So don't encrypt anything.

Even if it is not encripted, I have seen many problems with accessing NTFS partitions

User Error. Just because they don't know how to recover their data doesn't mean it's impossible.

but if there are any concerns about data loss then I would still stay with FAT32.

Right, because FAT doesn't have any issues. It's not like if 1 byte of the FAT gets out of whack the whole filesystem can be lost. The best part about FAT is how the long filenames are hacked on with duct tape, it's funny because you lose disk space when you use long filenames, each chunk (can't remember exactly how long) of a LFN uses an extra cluster to store the LFN so the more LFNs you use the more space you waste, fun!

 

[elkinm]

Mostly this comes from a hard drive that whent bad, it was partialy accessable but had problems, and I don't now how NTFS was structured but the entire volume was entierely unrecoverable. On the other hand I have seen data recoverd from a over 90% damaged FAT32 hard drive not much though. What I woul like to see is some hackable key in the FS. Such that with some setting, all permissions and passwords can be bypassed, and a secondary setting for strict security. I am the big one for having full controll and not loosing data or access to my system for any reason. So you can say I am still afraid of NTFS and it's benefits don't outway the flaws in my mind.

Anyway, the post is about gaming. If you plan on going to dual boot with a 9x version of windows for some games, then FAT32 may better. If your mimary concern is gaming, then NTFS may faster and most imprortantly more stable. I have seen some reviews of NTFS vs FAT32 for gaming and in some cases FAT32 was on top and in some NTFS was on top. It also depends somewhat on the games and the rest of your system.

 

[Nothinman]

Mostly this comes from a hard drive that whent bad

Right there your anecdote become irrelevant, a bad disk can screw any filesystem over. It just depends on which sectors the problems start developing in.

On the other hand I have seen data recoverd from a over 90% damaged FAT32 hard drive not much though

And I've recovered data from >90% of the drives I've had start dying on me, most of them are NTFS or some Linux filesystem, but does that mean anything about the filesystem? Nope.

What I woul like to see is some hackable key in the FS. Such that with some setting, all permissions and passwords can be bypassed

Login as Administrator, take control of all the files, boom you have bypassed all the security.

I am the big one for having full controll

Then you shouldn't even be running Windows, it alone restricts your control quite a bit.

So you can say I am still afraid of NTFS and it's benefits don't outway the flaws in my mind.

Too bad the flaws only exist in your mind.