Some questions related to external harddisk

[morland]

Hi,

I have an external harddisk and it's in FAT32 format. I want to request expert opinion regarding the following questions:

1. How can i convert my external harddisk from FAT32 to NTFS
   
2. Is it safe to do the conversion? I mean, is there ANY risk at all of loosing data of getting the harddisk corrupted during the conversion process?
   
3. What are the benefits of converting from FAT32 to NTFS? Performance, x, y, z, ??
   

Thanks

[VideoRipper]

First you should ask yourself this question: "Why do I have/need to convert my

external FAT-drive to NTFS?"

When the answer is "Because I want to store files larger than 4GB" or "Because

I want to encrypt the drive's partition" then I would say: "Do it".

If it's because you think it's "Better", "Faster" or "More modern"... dont'

Personally, I never use NTFS on external USB- or NAS-drives, for various reasons,

but maybe others can give you better advice?

(A certain Italian guy comes to mind)

Greetz,

Peter.

[puntoMX]

It's almost never safe to convert like that unless you know what you are doing and do it with care, just copy all to another harddisk and format the external drive NTFS and copy the data back. Now, when you use NTFS, you won't be able to use that on older OSes especially on Apple.

Edited June 6, 2010 by puntoMX
jaclaz slapped my behind for not being thorough.

[morland]

Thanks Peter and puntoMX for the good and solid advice. I guess I'll stay with my FAT32

[jaclaz]

Choosing between FAT32 and NTFS is your problem.

There are enough FAT32 vs. NTFS threads on MSFN, usually ending up in flaming the "opposite" party that starting another one is pretty much pointless, a few examples:

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=125116

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=125908

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=127698

Just for the record I can tell you that I NEVER lost 1 (one) single byte of data using the built-in XP utility CONVERT.EXE.

jaclaz

Edited June 5, 2010 by jaclaz

[CoffeeFiend]

Just for the record I can tell you that I NEVER lost 1 (one) single byte of data using the built-in XP utility CONVERT.EXE.

I have to echo that statement and I used to use it a lot in the Win2k & XP days.

[dencorso]

Unless you really need to use files > 4 GiB, stay with FAT32. Compatibility, IMHO, is the decisive feature.

[CoffeeFiend]

Unless you really need to use files > 4 GiB, stay with FAT32. Compatibility, IMHO, is the decisive feature.

It's a matter of preferences IMO. Any Windows OS from the last decade will happily use NTFS, Macs can natively read it (or write it using a few available options such as NTFS-3G) and on Linux it's mainly the same. There isn't a single computer at home, or work, friends or relatives that wouldn't use a NTFS formatted drive natively.

And 4GB files are getting quite popular. From ISO files, HD video files of different formats (kmv, mp4, mov), WIM files, "video" DVD images or even as one large VOB or MPG file, large rar/zip images, etc.

As far as I'm concerned, NTFS is the only option, unless you're talking about small memory cards meant for electronics like cameras or digital photo frames where the lowest common denominator (FAT32) is often the only option, but even then exFAT will likely soon take over.

Just my $0.02

[puntoMX]

Just for the record I can tell you that I NEVER lost 1 (one) single byte of data using the built-in XP utility CONVERT.EXE.

I know but you are a pro, believe me, I've seen enough people messing around with external devices; they lost somehow power or broke the data transfer.

Sure we have you here around to fix such data loss problems .

[morland]

Thanks everyone for the replies and for sharing your thoughts. Special thanks to jaclaz for the 3 links which are VERY informative indeed.

Members on this forum are very experienced and since I am new to your world (IT world) therefore I'm really not in a position to make any comments. After reading the replies and the links, I'll apply the "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" principle. BUT reading the reply to this post has helped me learn more and for that my thanks to msfn.org and all the helpful members.

[jaclaz]

Good.

Now that you think you may form yourself an opinion on FAT32 vs. NTFS, I can play the wildcard

FAT64 or ex_FAT:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExFAT

The good guys at ntfs.com have updated their "comparison chart" to include it:

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

No more 4 Gb file size limit, far lower overhead than NTFS.

Transactional FAT makes it almost as robust as NTFS:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa915463.aspx

And again most of the NTFS features are useful ONLY for a multi-user, security savvy environment, and are pretty much useless on "archiving" media or "common" single-user environments:

1. Alternate Streams
   
2. Compression
   
3. Encryption
   
4. Disk Quotas
   
5. Sparse Files
   
6. Reparse Points
   
7. Volume Mount Points
   

jaclaz

Edited June 6, 2010 by jaclaz