NTFS and FAT comparison
KNOWLEDGE RESOURCE

NTFS or FAT

 

You will almost always get the same answer: Go for NTFS! It has better security! Better this! Better that!

Folks, I’m here to tell you that that isn’t always the case, nothing is that clear cut (Life is never clear cut, rule no.1) and that the best solution is to have both file systems.

 

WELL, WHICH ONE SHOULD I CHOOSE?

I can’t choose for you. I don’t know your situation, nor know your needs, you environment and so on. The choice to go for either FAT or NTFS will entirely hinge on how you will use your hard disk. The easiest way to do that is to list the features of both file systems.

 

COMPARISON BETWEEN NTFS AND FAT

NTFS

FAT 16/32

Default File system In Windows XP, 2k and NT

Fat 16 not compatible with XP, FAT is more compatible with other operating Systems( Windows 95, etc)

Support For Drives over 40gb, Files over GB

 

Allows extended file names, foreign characters

FAT 16 has 8.3 character limitation

Has a severely crippled maintenance system in chkdsk

Has better, more and interactive recovery utilities (scandisk)

Chkdsk is notoriously slow

Scandisk is very quick

Increased security with file encryption

Just a space for the OS to read files

 

Faster on drives less than 10gb

Smaller file clusters, 4kb

FAT 16 cluster size is 32kb

Compression to reduce disk space

 

User permissions for files and folders

 

File copies are “undone” if interrupted, cluster chains is cleaned

Cluster chains containing data from interrupted copies are marked as damaged

Small files are kept in Master File Table at the beginning of the drive

Master File Table are separate from files

Not compatible with different operating systems on the same computer

 

 

SOME RANDOM FACTS

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WELL, WHICH SHOULD I CHOOSE?

If you really only want to choose one way or another, here are two very important considerations:

For files above 4gb, and hard disks above 32gb, go for NTFS

For smaller drives, files and better recovery tools go for FAT

But why not go for both, which is the best option in my opinion.

Set aside some FAT so that you can run recovery tools, especially scandisk, so that you have something usable when things go awry, instead of the awful Windows System Tools.

Then set the rest to NTFS so that you have better security on personal files, support for large files and drive.

 

MORE DETAILED COMPARISON

Criteria

NTFS5

NTFS

FAT32

FAT16

Operating System

Windows 2000
Windows XP

Windows NT
Windows 2000
Windows XP

Windows 98
Windows ME
Windows 2000
Windows XP

DOS
All versions of
Microsoft Windows

 

Limitations

Max Volume Size

2TB

2TB

2TB

2GB

Max Files on Volume

Nearly Unlimited

Nearly Unlimited

Nearly Unlimited

~65000

Max File Size

Limit Only by
Volume Size

Limit Only by
Volume Size

4GB

2GB

Max Clusters Number

Nearly Unlimited

Nearly Unlimited

268435456

65535

Max File Name Length

Up to 255

Up to 255

Up to 255

Standard - 8.3
Extended - up to 255

 

File System Features

Unicode File Names

Unicode Character Set

Unicode Character Set

System Character Set

System Character Set

System Records Mirror

MFT Mirror File

MFT Mirror File

Second Copy of  FAT

Second Copy of  FAT

Boot Sector Location

First and Last Sectors

First and Last Sectors

First Sector

First Sector

File Attributes

Standard and Custom

Standard and Custom

Standard Set

Standard Set

Alternate Streams

Yes

Yes

No

No

Compression

Yes

Yes

No

No

Encryption

Yes

No

No

No

Object Permissions

Yes

Yes

No

No

Disk Quotas

Yes

No

No

No

Sparse Files

Yes

No

No

No

Reparse Points

Yes

No

No

No

Volume Mount Points

Yes

No

No

No

 

Overall Performance

Built-In Security

Yes

Yes

No

No

Recoverability

Yes

Yes

No

No

Performance

Low on small volumes
High on Large

Low on small volumes 
High on Large

High on small volumes
Low on large

Highest on small volumes
Low on large

Disk Space Economy

Max

Max

Average

Minimal on large volumes

Fault Tolerance

Max

Max

Minimal

Average

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Article reprinted with permission of www.NTFS.com

 

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