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NTFS vs FAT32
Posted: Thu Aug 20, 2009 4:55 pm
by Red_5
Here it comes again, the decision of what to format my new 8GB Sandisk flash drive too... FAT32 or NTFS?
Which is better? What's the difference? Pros and cons?
Thanks for taking the time to help a noooooob.
Apologies to all
Posted: Thu Aug 20, 2009 5:17 pm
by Isaac
I had some jump drives that weren't recognized on some computers using NTFS. So I had to reformat them to FAT32 to work with home, school, and work computers.
Posted: Thu Aug 20, 2009 5:28 pm
by SuperSheep
Posted: Thu Aug 20, 2009 10:12 pm
by TechPro
NTFS is more efficient ... however at 8gb, unless you have a lot of small files on it you won't really lose a lot of space to the inefficiency of FAT32 ... and (IMHO) the multiple platform compatability for FAT32 easily makes up for the inefficiency when you consider the places and times that NTFS can't (or won't) be readable by a system.
I'd go with FAT32.
Posted: Fri Aug 21, 2009 6:41 am
by BUBBALOU
stick with FAT32 at least until Flash drives start reaching 160GB, then move to another file system
Posted: Fri Aug 21, 2009 6:56 am
by Skyalmian
If you have any files on the flash drive above 4GB, you need NTFS since FAT32 doesn't allow file sizes larger than that.
Posted: Fri Aug 21, 2009 10:38 am
by Kilarin
Linux works fine with NTFS now, so why use FAT32?
Posted: Fri Aug 21, 2009 3:14 pm
by Canuck
Umm as much as I like Linux there ARE other OS's out there. Fat32 allows MAC and Windows machines to share files and is of course recognized by Linux as well.
Posted: Fri Aug 21, 2009 4:37 pm
by Red_5
Alrighy. FATSO32 is my winner. Thanks for the input.
Posted: Fri Aug 21, 2009 5:39 pm
by Kilarin
Canuck wrote:Umm as much as I like Linux there ARE other OS's out there
What?!?!?
Posted: Sat Aug 22, 2009 7:16 am
by snoopy
Ext3?
Posted: Sat Aug 22, 2009 11:18 am
by Ferno
not all OS's support EXT3.
Anything under 8gb, format with FAT32.
anything over 8gb, NTFS.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/140365
Posted: Sat Aug 22, 2009 12:10 pm
by Zantor
You can get a \"driver\" For ext2 and ext3 for windows, but not everyone's computers will have that, so go for FAT32. It's what I format all my flash storage with.