O.P. NTFS or FAT32 for an external drive?
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"
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