[Question] Why does XP defrag NTFS partitions faster than FAT32 partit

[E-66]

I partitioned a HDD with a small primary FAT16 boot partition and a 3 GB NTFS logical partition for the OS (with other partitions for Data, Programs, etc). As soon as installation was complete I defragged the OS partition. Took between 2-3 minutes.

After making a disk image I deleted all the partitions and zero filled the drive and started over with the same partition scheme except this time I made the OS partition FAT32 instead of NTFS. Defragged after getting the OS installed and it took between 15-20 minutes.

I then repeated this test again, zero filling the drive and installing the OS on both NTFS & FAT32 partitions and got the same result - 2 to 3 minutes defrag for the 3 GB NTFS partition, but 15-20 for the same size FAT32 partition.

Can someone explain why?

I also took the HDD and attached it to my Win98-ME hybrid system and defragged the FAT32 partition with ME's defragger and it blew right through it in no time.

[bonestonne]

windows XP is designed to run more efficiently with the NTFS format, while older versions of windows were not, therefore, windows XP will already be better at defragging a native partition than any other type.

[E-66]

Yeah, but 8x more efficient/better/faster?

[nmX.Memnoch]

NTFS and FAT32 are two completely different file systems. NTFS is much more resilient to fragmentation than FAT or FAT32. For this reason the drive probably wasn't as fragmented when formatted with NTFS as it was with FAT32 when you ran your tests. There's also a major difference in cluster sizes as well.

[pmshah]

I also took the HDD and attached it to my Win98-ME hybrid system and defragged the FAT32 partition with ME's defragger and it blew right through it in no time.

That is one main reason why a lot of people replace the win98 defragger with one from WinME.