[guitarman19853]

I just bought a Western Digital external hard drive, and noticed that its formatted in FAT32. All of my other drives/externals are formatted in NTFS. Which one should I go with? Does it have to do with the size of the disk? 750 GB

Drives:
2- 80 GB drives JBOD into 160 GB NTFS
120 GB internal NTFS
300 GB external NTFS
750 GB external FAT32 ???

 

[vcoheda]

i say NTFS.

 

[infinitesymphony]

The external drive is formatted for FAT32 to help with interoperability between operating systems. For example, Windows 98 can't read NTFS, and FAT32 is more easily readable by Mac OSX (and other Unix-based operating systems).

NTFS is more secure, so if you'll only be using it with Windows XP or higher, it's recommended.

 

[flashnolan]

NTFS fragments less easily, can recover from disk problems easier, has smaller cluster sizes which means less wasted space filling clusters, better file search times because of its B-Tree structure, increased speed of reading small files, and more advanced file permissions. NTFS has been successfully tested with a 19 Terabyte partition size. NTFS is theoretically good up to 8 Petabytes. I it will be interesting to see what they go with when Hard Drives reach Exabytes.

FAT32 is more compatible as was mentioned. Linux "can" read NTFS but only with experimental drivers. DOS and Win9x cannot read NTFS. FAT32 is limited to around 2 Terabytes partition size (2000 GB).

If you have Windows XP I recommend NTFS.

 

[Eagle_Driver]

Quote:

Originally Posted by flashnolan /img/forum/go_quote.gif FAT32 is more compatible as was mentioned. Linux "can" read NTFS but only with experimental drivers. DOS and Win9x cannot read NTFS. FAT32 is limited to around 2 Terabytes partition size (2000 GB).

In addition to the 2TB limitation per volume, FAT32 has an individual file size limit of only 4 billion bytes (4GB, or 3.725GiB). This means that very large video files (such as videos over 15 minutes long captured directly from a miniDV camcorder using the DV-AVI format) cannot be written onto a FAT32 volume.

 

[SysteX]

Quote:

Originally Posted by flashnolan /img/forum/go_quote.gif FAT32 is more compatible as was mentioned. Linux "can" read NTFS but only with experimental drivers.

The latest releases from Ubuntu and its derivatives (Xbuntu, Kubuntu, etc.) can both read and write to NTFS natively! The only thing that isn't prime is that file permissions setup in Windows are not respected in Linux. Otherwise, it works perfectly without any modification.

 

[patman657]

Quote:

Originally Posted by SysteX /img/forum/go_quote.gif The latest releases from Ubuntu and its derivatives (Xbuntu, Kubuntu, etc.) can both read and write to NTFS natively! The only thing that isn't prime is that file permissions setup in Windows are not respected in Linux. Otherwise, it works perfectly without any modification.

NTFS drivers for Linux have now reached the point where stability should not be an issue for the average user. Check out this page. Now matter how good the drivers get, they will always be "experimental" because NTFS is closed-source and will likely never be perfectly cloned.

 

[zachary80]

NTFS, unless you plan on using it with things besides XP/Vista. Even xbox360 takes a FAT32 formatted drive

 

[Seaside]

Quick question. Can I use DOS with SATA HDD if I format it FAT32?

 

[infinitesymphony]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seaside /img/forum/go_quote.gif Quick question. Can I use DOS with SATA HDD if I format it FAT32?

No... I think that true DOS can only read FAT16. From what I've read, DOS will need to be on the primary disk with the drive letter C: in a section formatted with FAT16.

Why not just use DOSBox?

 

[fordgtlover]

There is very little benefit in using FAT these days.

Why would you need to use DOS on an external drive? DOS is dependant on your system drive. If your system drive is NTFS you won't be able to use DOS anyway.

If you use a DOS boot disk you will only see the FAT partitions. If the external drive is USB you will also need to have the USB drivers on the boot disk.

 

[starmaker]

If you use only windows use NTFS, otherwise stick with FAT32.

 

[FallenAngel]

If you use Windows XP/Vista(evil), Reformat under NTFS. Just once you'll want an ISO of a DVD and you'll be screwed with FAT32.

If you use linux exclusively, it's a no brainer, ext3.

 

[Eagle_Driver]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seaside /img/forum/go_quote.gif Quick question. Can I use DOS with SATA HDD if I format it FAT32?

Nope. DOS 6.x not only cannot read FAT32 volumes at all, it cannot read any volume larger than 2GB. Nor can it support any physical hard drive larger than 8GB total.

 

[flashnolan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eagle_Driver /img/forum/go_quote.gif Nope. DOS 6.x not only cannot read FAT32 volumes at all, it cannot read any volume larger than 2GB. Nor can it support any physical hard drive larger than 8GB total.

DOS can only handle 8 character names too. A nice file like Gladiator - Hans Zimmer Track 1.Flac would only be called Gladia~1.Flac...Yuck!