Shoutbox

I have a 500Gb external hard drive that I use mainly for file storage. This involves frequent transfer of files from my PC to the external HD and sometimes also deletion and copy/paste of files from the ext.HD to the PC drive. Should I format the external drive with the FAT32 file system? (it currently has NTFS). The reason for my concern is the following post I read in this forum:

"i would suggest keeping a Fat32 file system if you plan on transferring alot of data back and forth
there is a critical Flaw in the NTFs volume bitmap which causes freespace to be reporting within the MFT and the MFT reserved space (MFT = Master File Table)
(Volume bitmap is what tells the drive where all the freespace lies)
this is becoz transfering alot of small and large files over at once causes it to become confused and it damages the drive
i had to format back to Fat32 after restoring all my data to NTFS
luckily i was able to salvage my data"

This sounds kinda strange... I would recommend NTFS because it makes searching and browsing the drive a lot quicker (because of the MTF). Just make sure you defrag your drive sometimes to improve performance (I use PerfectDisk 7.0)

MArkus, speaking about external drive maintenance, there are two tasks I usually do:
- Defragmenting (I use diskeeper)
- Scandisk (I use the regular WinXP CHMDSK) to check/fix any file inconsistencies.
Problem with scandisk is that I can't run it because when the PC reboots scandisk does not seem to detect the external USB2 HD. This is strange because in a previous WinXP installation I had in the same PC I was able to run scandisk on the external drive, so it must be a software issue. Any ideas?

If you're running WinXP's ScanDisk, ensure that nothing is using the drive.

quote:

---

Originally posted by alegator
I have a 500Gb external hard drive that I use mainly for file storage. This involves frequent transfer of files from my PC to the external HD and sometimes also deletion and copy/paste of files from the ext.HD to the PC drive. Should I format the external drive with the FAT32 file system? (it currently has NTFS).

---

That only depends on 1 thing: Are you planning to use the external drive also on system which doesn't support NTFS (like win98)? Although, when you do format it with FAT32, there is a big chance you will not be able to use the full 500GB...

NTFS has also some other benefits, other then the support for high volumes, like more security (if you wish) and better/optimized storage of data.

Bottem line, if you're planning to use your external drive on machines with NTFS compatible OS's like WinXP, etc. stay with NFTS.

quote:

---

Originally posted by alegator
The reason for my concern is the following post I read in this forum:

"i would suggest keeping a Fat32 file system if you plan on transferring alot of data back and forth
there is a critical Flaw in the NTFs volume bitmap which causes freespace to be reporting within the MFT and the MFT reserved space (MFT = Master File Table)
(Volume bitmap is what tells the drive where all the freespace lies)
this is becoz transfering alot of small and large files over at once causes it to become confused and it damages the drive
i had to format back to Fat32 after restoring all my data to NTFS
luckily i was able to salvage my data"

---

That's total malinformation and should never be posted in the first place. There is nothing wrong with NFTS...

FAT32 was used be the format use of smaller harddrives, harddrives for non-heavy use. If you wil have a lots of files on your disk and you wil heavy use is, fat32 is not the way to go. Also it crashes easier and crashes on fat32 can leave permanent cluster errors. A new harddisk is always in FAT32 because is a blank option then: if the users wants NTFS (more likely) you can convert it. But you can't convert NTFS to FAT32 easy again without messing. That's why they sell it FAT32 for users who do might want it, for what reason that might be...

quote:

---

Originally posted by Exca
That only depends on 1 thing: Are you planning to use the external drive also on system which doesn't support NTFS (like win98)? Although, when you do format it with FAT32, there is a big chance you will not be able to use the full 500GB...

NTFS has also some other benefits, other then the support for high volumes, like more security (if you wish) and better/optimized storage of data.

Bottem line, if you're planning to use your external drive on machines with NTFS compatible OS's like WinXP, etc. stay with NFTS.

---

NTFS and FAT32 both support up to 2TB so that's not a problem . But NTFS is more secure, performs better on larges disks and makes searching and browsing faster.

Check this website for more info on NTFS vs. FAT(32)
http://www.ntfs.com/ntfs_vs_fat.htm

Edit:
As you can see on that site, the max file size on FAT32 is 4GB!

although that table is a nice and rough comparisson, it has some errors...

In theory, FAT32 volumes can be about 8 terabytes; however, the maximum FAT32 volume size that Windows XP and the likes can format is 32 GB. Therefore, you must use NTFS to format volumes larger than 32 GB. However, Windows XP and the likes can read and write to larger FAT32 volumes formatted by other operating systems.

For FAT32:
Maximum file size: 4 GB minus 1 byte (2^32 bytes minus 1 byte)
Maximum volume size: 32 GB
Files per volume: 4,177,920
Maximum number of files and subfolders within a single folder: 65,534 (The use of long file names can significantly reduce the number of available files and subfolders within a folder!!)

For NFTS:
Maximum file size (in theory): 16 exabytes minus 1 KB (2^64 bytes minus 1 KB)
Maximum file size (in practice): 16 terabytes minus 64 KB (2^44 bytes minus 64 KB)
Maximum volume size (in theory): 2^64 clusters minus 1 cluster
Maximum volume size (in practice): 2^56 terabytes minus 64 KB ( 2^32 clusters minus 1 cluster)
Files per volume: 4,294,967,295 (2^32 minus 1 file)

That are some cool numbers . Well, I think we can all say NTFS is the best choice for his external drive

Yes, NTFS is the clear winner....