NTFS versus FAT32

[Molecule]

I have to be the world's worst searcher ... a search on +FAT32 +versus +NTFS +2000 produces one result, which immediately degenerated into a rant on w98se versus XP. A search on +FAT32 +versus +NTFS produces a thousand pages, none of whose topics focus on this question. So, I am taking the leap...

I am thinking of building a w2k system and am thinking of using FAT32 rather than NTFS. It's a hard choice to buck the "popular system" or the Micorsoft approved method.

a) I understand NTFS changes a folder date whenever anything under it is changed. As a personal preference, and as a folder-date dependent person, that would drive me crazy. (Is that true?)

B) having "my" (lol) NTFS system does not make "me" any more or less secure. Certainly not to the data-sucking Al-CIAda/Echelon creeps who tunnel "their" data out that little wire that goes out the back of our machines. And given the virus-worm-rootkit problems that NTFS system owners are famous for, and the proven absense of virus problems I have had with FAT32, over decades of clueless, adventurous and tireless downloading -- not that I understand it, but that's my observation. Maybe script kiddies are having more fun giving NTFS "owners" a virus problem.

c) NTFS is proprietary -- the rumor is that its outward appearance has been "fully reverse engineered." But at its innermost working levels, NTFS is still top secret (for no reason which can be good to the "owners").

d) FAT32 disks (pata to sata, 0 to 500g) are native to machine level command prompts, produced by free as in speech operating systems like dos and linux. One odd thing about the reported security of NTFS -- with a freely available NTFS driver, w98se (now running off 3.5 gig of DDR2, with 500 g sata raids) can now read and write to an NTFS drive seamlessly, as though it were attached to USB. And a w98se/FAT32 system reportedly reads and writes to an NTFS drive with original privileges -- which may exceed those of the Microsoft-devined "administrator" privileges, which for "proprietary" reasons are intentionally limited by Microsoft.

e) FAT32s have their FAT file problems, such as when power supply units get overloaded and memory chips get funky, etc. But, wouldn't that also be true of an NTFS drive during a current overload/voltage drop?

Other members have noted, in comments tangential to numerous threads, that they prefer FAT32 to NTFS for xp and 2000. Can they expand?

Is there a good engineering reason to NOT chose one over the other, such as software designed for w2k won't work on FAT32, because specific calls in their programing require an answer from NTFS, and they crash when they encounter a FAT32 hdd?

Edited November 10, 2008 by Molecule

[jaclaz]

There are several factors affecting the choice.

Start with reading here:

http://www.ntfs.com/ntfs_vs_fat.htm

In a nutshell:

1) FAT32 is slightly faster on "smallish" sized volumes

2) FAT32 gives far less security in case of a filesystem corruption (but on the other hand file recovery is generally easier on FAT drives then on NTFS ones) - file recovery on NTFS compressed or encrypted drives usually is a nightmare and often gives no or very scarce results - but the event of an unrepairable broken NTFS filesystem is much less probable than a FAT (16 or 32 doesn't matter) one

3) FAT32 misses features like quotas, access security and more generally anything might be of use in a multi-user environment

4) NTFS makes a far bigger number of disk writes that may wear out prematurely Solid state devices like USB sticks, SSD cards and drives. (and probably conventional hard drives also, though the latter are designed for such a high number of write cycles that there is no concern on them)

5) the single filesize limit of 4 Gb FAT32 has can be a severe drawback if you use video's DVD's or similar BIG multimedia.

For example on a Laptop (just one user) like the EEEPC with it's (smallish) SSD card, I would personally prefer FAT32 over NTFS.

ALL programs (exception made for "low-level" ones like defraggers and similar ones) are "filesystem agnostic". They use the IFS driver in the NT subsystem to access both in Read and Write the mass storage devices.

jaclaz

[mongo66]

a) I understand NTFS changes a folder date whenever anything under it is changed. As a personal preference, and as a folder-date dependent person, that would drive me crazy. (Is that true?)

I haven't noticed it while running Vista, but I've seen folder data/time changes occur after copying/moving files between NTFS volumes in Windows XP...

I am thinking of building a w2k system and am thinking of using FAT32 rather than NTFS. It's a hard choice to buck the "popular system" or the Micorsoft approved method.

Some things to consider...

- Is this (Win2K) system going to be accessed by MS-DOS or Win9X?

- What's the size of the partition or drive?

- How many partitions are on this system?

- Do you plan on storing large files (>4GB) in size?

- Do you plan on using special features like file encryption, disk quotas?

[cluberti]

b. having "my" (lol) NTFS system does not make "me" any more or less secure. Certainly not to the data-sucking Al-CIAda/Echelon creeps who tunnel "their" data out that little wire that goes out the back of our machines. And given the virus-worm-rootkit problems that NTFS system owners are famous for, and the proven absense of virus problems I have had with FAT32, over decades of clueless, adventurous and tireless downloading -- not that I understand it, but that's my observation. Maybe script kiddies are having more fun giving NTFS "owners" a virus problem.

Having an NTFS filesystem doesn't make your system more or less secure, it's just a filesystem. Yes it provides alternate data streams and such to "hide" files, or can provide security ACLs to lock files down, perhaps, but it doesn't make the system any more or less secure - the same theoretical security issue in 2K that allowed the bad code in will be exploitable at a system level, regardless of filesystem.

c. NTFS is proprietary -- the rumor is that its outward appearance has been "fully reverse engineered." But at its innermost working levels, NTFS is still top secret (for no reason which can be good to the "owners").

So is Windows, but you're using that. I fail to see the issue, although I usually do.

e) FAT32s have their FAT file problems, such as when power supply units get overloaded and memory chips get funky, etc. But, wouldn't that also be true of an NTFS drive during a current overload/voltage drop?

True, but NTFS is a journaled filesystem, and in almost all cases will be able to recover itself (and your files). FAT filesystems are not, and will not.

Other members have noted, in comments tangential to numerous threads, that they prefer FAT32 to NTFS for xp and 2000. Can they expand?

Is there a good engineering reason to NOT chose one over the other, such as software designed for w2k won't work on FAT32, because specific calls in their programing require an answer from NTFS, and they crash when they encounter a FAT32 hdd?

Honestly, unless you need access to the volume by other OSes on the same machine that can't read NTFS, you should use NTFS.

[konenas]

Personally I thing that NTFS is a file system and FAT isn't.

I would recommend NTFS and only because of journaling, despite of all the other capabilities.

Edited November 13, 2008 by konenas

[KiSystemStartup]

I used to prefer FAT32, but recently I changed my mind.

FAT32 lacks Access Control List (ACL) feature, so it's less secure.

FAT32 lacks filesystem journaling, so it's less secure.

FAT32 lacks filesystem level compression of files. NT-based systems use a %windir%\system32\dllcache folder to save clean and checked system files, and will restore them from cache if the system copy is corrupt, e.g. in the wake of a possible virus contamination. Because this feature requires more storage, and because the files are seldom accessed, the dllcache folder can be compressed. FAT32 cannot do that.

Sometimes FAT32 is used for compatibility across operating systems, but NEVER use FAT32 on any production computers, esp. servers.

The NTFS-3g for Linux and FreeBSD is freely available out there.

If you prefer MS-DOS, try NTFSDOS, a utility from Winternals (later acquired by Microsoft, though).

Both tools can access NTFS (NT4~NT5.2) volumes without a problem, provided the volumes are clean, i.e. CHKDSK'ed, and that the system was shut down properly.

And: Remember to back up sensitive or important data to secure places, whether you are using FAT16/32 or NTFS.

Hope you'll make your decision.

Edit:

FAT32 doesn't support large volumes. The FORMAT.COM in NT5 and later does not create FAT32 volumes larger than 32G. I had created a 40G FAT32 partition using a third-party tool, then Windows 2000 (SP4) booted, but crashed with a Blue Screen of Death. OK when it was reformatted into NTFS.

Edited January 14, 2009 by KiSystemStartup

[Dave-H]

FAT32 doesn't support large volumes. The FORMAT.COM in NT5 and later does not create FAT32 volumes larger than 32G. I had created a 40G FAT32 partition using a third-party tool, then Windows 2000 (SP4) booted, but crashed with a Blue Screen of Death. OK when it was reformatted into NTFS.

This is an issue, but not an intrinsic irresolvable problem.

I have a dual boot system using Windows 98SE and Windows 2000 SP4.

I use drives up to 160GB without problems on both OSs (FAT32 of course).

It is true that Windows 2000 will not format a FAT32 volume larger than 32GB, but Windows 98SE can.

So I had to format the large volumes using Windows 98, but Windows 2000 has never had any problem reading and writing to them, even though it couldn't create them!

[KiSystemStartup]

It is true that Windows 2000 will not format a FAT32 volume larger than 32GB, but Windows 98SE can.

True indeed.

Well, I remember that I had used the newfs_msdos program from the OpenBSD operating system as a replacement of format.com, and it might be the cause of compatibility issues. Perhaps re-formatting it with Win98 (SE required?) is a good solution.

Thanks for the idea.

[jaclaz]

There are other apps :

http://tokiwa.qee.jp/EN/Fat32Formatter/index.html

jaclaz

[pointertovoid]

Hello everybody!

Updating the dtm of the folders can be disabled in the register (NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate). No noticeable difference on a hard disk, but could be nice on a Compact Flash card or an SSD.

Ntfs is faster if you search a file in a big tree of folders. Experiment, observe.

My W2k defrags Ntfs much faster than Fat32. (No, Win's Defrag isn't bad. Yes, the result is better than with other Defrag suppliers. Listen to the difference and measure the times to start Win or applications)

If your computer crashes, Fat32 often loses a file or several (recovered as chk0000, little usable). Ntfs, almost never. Very important to me.

Do NOT use Ntfs' encryption (EFS). If you lose a user's profile and reinstall it with the same name and password, the data is lost because the key is different each time. Use another software, like Pgp or Gpg or what you want.

I wouldn't use other Ntfs improvements neither, like dynamic volumes and their Raid features etc. Intuitively, they make data recovery much less probable after a crash.

For data recovery on Ntfs, Ubuntu now can access Ntfs and comes on a bootable CD. And don't throw you old slow small hard drive away: install a W2k or Xp on it for all such operations.

Ntfs does improve security quite a bit, PROVIDED you use Windows from a user's account that has no administrator privilege. Then, user's mistakes, as well as many virus, won't be able to harm the system nor other users' data. Well, almost... First, you must use Ntfs from the beginning and not convert it from Fat. Secondly, some virus use weaknesses to become administrators, or install as services or misuse existing services that are admin or system. But this is still an advantage important enough to me that I choose Ntfs and non-admin accounts.

The maximum Fat32 volume size is about 8TB but most Windows are limited to 4TB disks (not volumes) anyway.

[GrofLuigi]

The more I get familiar with NTFS, the more I want to revert to FAT on a boot partition.

The only thing that really keeps me from doing it is the error resiliency (chkdisk on boot). I would gladly give away all the other features of NTFS.

GL

[CeeJay.dk]

NTFS is safer and does not have problems with large files.

I use NTFS on harddisks but FAT or FAT32 on my USB sticks.

[MaxFrax]

I use FAT32.

I accept the minor risk failsafe but I prefer to avoid that the viruses use NTFS in order to block the access to some directories…

I feel myself surer.