Tuesday, April 4, 2017
NTFS vs FAT
NTFS vs FAT
To NTFS or not to NTFS—that is the question. But unlike the deeper questions of life, this one isnt really all that hard to answer. For most users running Windows XP, NTFS is the obvious choice. Its more powerful and offers security advantages not found in the other file systems. But lets go over the differences among the files systems so were all clear about the choice. There are essentially three different file systems available in Windows XP: FAT16, short for File Allocation Table, FAT32, and NTFS, short for NT File System.
FAT16
The FAT16 file system was introduced way back with MS–DOS in 1981, and its showing its age. It was designed originally to handle files on a floppy drive, and has had minor modifications over the years so it can handle hard disks, and even file names longer than the original limitation of 8.3 characters, but its still the lowest common denominator. The biggest advantage of FAT16 is that it is compatible across a wide variety of operating systems, including Windows 95/98/Me, OS/2, Linux, and some versions of UNIX. The biggest problem of FAT16 is that it has a fixed maximum number of clusters per partition, so as hard disks get bigger and bigger, the size of each cluster has to get larger. In a 2–GB partition, each cluster is 32 kilobytes, meaning that even the smallest file on the partition will take up 32 KB of space. FAT16 also doesnt support compression, encryption, or advanced security using access control lists.
FAT32
The FAT32 file system, originally introduced in Windows 95 Service Pack 2, is really just an extension of the original FAT16 file system that provides for a much larger number of clusters per partition. As such, it greatly improves the overall disk utilization when compared to a FAT16 file system. However, FAT32 shares all of the other limitations of FAT16, and adds an important additional limitation—many operating systems that can recognize FAT16 will not work with FAT32—most notably Windows NT, but also Linux and UNIX as well. Now this isnt a problem if youre running FAT32 on a Windows XP computer and sharing your drive out to other computers on your network—they dont need to know (and generally dont really care) what your underlying file system is.
The Advantages of NTFS
The NTFS file system, introduced with first version of Windows NT, is a completely different file system from FAT. It provides for greatly increased security, file–by–file compression, quotas, and even encryption. It is the default file system for new installations of Windows XP, and if youre doing an upgrade from a previous version of Windows, youll be asked if you want to convert your existing file systems to NTFS. Dont worry. If youve already upgraded to Windows XP and didnt do the conversion then, its not a problem. You can convert FAT16 or FAT32 volumes to NTFS at any point. Just remember that you cant easily go back to FAT or FAT32 (without reformatting the drive or partition), not that I think youll want to.
The NTFS file system is generally not compatible with other operating systems installed on the same computer, nor is it available when youve booted a computer from a floppy disk. For this reason, many system administrators, myself included, used to recommend that users format at least a small partition at the beginning of their main hard disk as FAT. This partition provided a place to store emergency recovery tools or special drivers needed for reinstallation, and was a mechanism for digging yourself out of the hole youd just dug into. But with the enhanced recovery abilities built into Windows XP (more on that in a future column), I dont think its necessary or desirable to create that initial FAT partition.
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