FAT32 is faster with smaller files than NTFS, anyone want to rebuke my claim?

Yours looking for a riot.

Originally Posted by HippyWarlock

FAT32 is faster with smaller files than NTFS, anyone want to rebuke my claim?

Yours looking for a riot.

Depends on who you ask HippyWarlock, I disagree with your statement but I'm open for debate on the subject. The better question is does a NTFS file system need to be defragged as often as FAT 32 & is a FAT32 file system secure? IMHO the only reason not to format as NTFS is if you are running a dual boot system such as XP & 98.

For fault tolerance, data recovery, disk optimisation, security - then yes. Choose NTFS.

But if you want performance on relatively small file sizes, choose FAT32 ...everything else being equal that is.

If you have games, put them on FAT32.

Well yes for small volumes FAT32 is faster. In fact FAT16 is faster still but you wouldn't catch me going back to either. I couldn't imagine formatting my 300Gb drive into 10 volumes!

Oh!... I was expecting a mass debate.

Oh well

i do believe this debate has rekindled since vista release. the lockdown that vista has placed on file manipolation is a pain. i login as an administrator and sometimes vista will not allow me to delete a folder because of insufficient privaleges!!!!. fat32 on vista is awesome. no security overhead to worry about. mind you, i play mostly games on my PC so security is not an issue with me.
any thoughts on this ???

Not sure of the point here. Who is disputing that? No experts that I know do. Microsoft doesn't.

I must note these discussions are years old - with roots going back to when 32Gb hard drives were monster drives.

What must not be ignored is today's hard drives with 16 and 32Mb buffers, faster seek and read/write times, PCs with much more RAM and a properly configured page file more than compensate for any lag NTFS may have for small files. I also note that cluster sizes matter too.

i play mostly games on my PC so security is not an issue with me.

any thoughts on this ???

No - not if this is a stand-alone machine. But if you ever connect it to a network that has Internet access, the security advantage of NTFS trump everything else.

ok thanks. it's just that vista is making me pull what hair i have left out trying to deal with files.

Originally Posted by Bear

Depends on who you ask HippyWarlock, I disagree with your statement but I'm open for debate on the subject. The better question is does a NTFS file system need to be defragged as often as FAT 32 & is a FAT32 file system secure? IMHO the only reason not to format as NTFS is if you are running a dual boot system such as XP & 98.

I am going to use Fat 32 on my XP machine because of Dual Boot Linux. Its not the main computer which runs in NTFS but I am finding out that All Linux O/S run in FAT 32.