Installing XP -> using fat-32 (not NFTS)

[98 Guy]

I'm installing XP-pro on some new hardware, and I've pre-formatted a 250 gb SATA drive into two 125 gb FAT-32 partitions. I've selected the cluster-size to be 4kb. Here's why:

1) Sure, NTFS has file permissions. That's nice in a corporate / lan setting, but for a single user home system, who needs that? Permissions? I don't need no stink'in permissions!

2) I don't care what you say, permissions take more resources to manage, and take a bite out of system performance. Take a look at some hard drive performance measurements - FAT32 always beats NTFS

3) NTFS is more "robust" or fault tolerant. I think that's an urban legend. I've seen lots of grief over messed up NTFS drives and there is no easy third-party solution because NTFS is proprietary to MS. On the other hand, I've never seen a FAT drive that Norton Disk Doctor couldn't fix. And if a FAT-32 is really pooched, then there's always chain reconstruction (Lost and Found, which I had to use - but only once).

4) NTFS is less fragment-prone. Again I say that's an urban legend. Ask any developer with win-2k on his desk just how fragged NTFS can get.

5) If I want low-level access to a FAT32 drive or the files (for any reason) if I boot a dos floppy I can get in and do stuff (replace files, rename or remove, run a dos-level virus scan, etc). Can't do that if the drive is NTFS.

6) 2K/XP can't format a FAT-32 drive larger than 32 gb. Yea, it's always mentioned. So what? What's that got to do with the "fat vs NTFS" argument?

7) FAT is not efficient because of large cluster size. Yea, so use a third-party partition tool and set the FAT-32 cluster size to what-ever you want.

What is the only real, tangible benefit NTFS has over fat-32? It's the max file-size for FAT32 - 4gb vs no practical limit for NTFS.

Well, now that I've vented, I am interested to see if anyone wants to challenge any of those points...

[severach]

* No hard links.

* No compression. I avoid NTFS wherever possible.

However NTFSDOS and GetDataBack for NTFS seem to work quite well. Thanks to those NTFS is only a small pile of poo and not a large one.

Edit: NTFS is fine for a data drive but I don't want it for the boot drive.

Edited April 2, 2007 by severach

[redxii]

I don't run as administrator, therefore the permissions protect system files from being easily overwritten by malware. Permissions are a non-issue for most people because most people run as administrator. They may was well use Windows 9x.

I frequently have files over 4GB. I can use BartPE to run scans even if all partitions are NTFS. The file system doesn't make a difference if the files you attempt to rename or replace are locked by the OS, not file permissions.

I would never use any operating system from the DOS bloodline (DOS - WinME) outside of a virtual machine.

[j7n]

I totally agree with you about FAT32.

4 GB is indeed a very pressing limitation. There is a standard that extends FAT32 by allowing a few more bits for file size. It's called FAT32+. But I have not heard of any practical implementations.

For now I could suggest that you create an NTFS partition for the large files you will be working with. This is what I have done: 3 HDDs, one of them in NTFS.

Edited April 1, 2007 by j7n

[Andromeda43]

I totally agree with you about FAT32.

4 GB is indeed a very pressing limitation. There is a standard that extends FAT32 by allowing a few more bits for file size. It's called FAT32+. But I have not heard of any practical implementations.

For now I could suggest that you create an NTFS partition for the large files you will be working with. This is what I have done: 3 HDDs, one of them in NTFS.

Cute Kitty!

10-4 on one little partition for those huge files that like an NTFS partition.

I don't need one and don't have one.

For us old DOS addicts, XP was a real POC, that is till I figgered out that I could run XP on a FAT-32 partition and if anything it ran better than on an NTFS part. And the best part of all......with anyones old DOS boot disk, I can boot up my system and access any file on the HD, to get rid of problems, make repairs etc. I don't need no special PE disk or any of that new fangled junk.

I even run Ghost 2003/2005 from boot disks, in DOS mode. With a series of batch files on my boot disk, I can remove all of the junk files from my HD, delete the Pagefile (1.5gigs) and remove all the old Restore points. That saves me about 2 gigs of space in my Ghost Backup Image files. I can even Scandisk my HD from my boot disk.

It was a real kick in the keester when I discovered that Vista will not run on anything but an NTFS partition. So my new Vista machine will never be my main PC. Unless of course I install XP-Pro on it. Actually, I've already set that up on a second HD.

DOS Rules!

Andromeda43

[j7n]

I believe XP should have come with Win98 as the secondary startup option by default. Maybe they were afraid about "political" consequences of another "DOS-based" system, even if it would only load DOS when required. I have setup my machine this way and now I have zero incompatible software, and if my WinXP wouldn't boot for some reason, I start up Win98 and fix the problem. I can also backup each operating system from the other one (boot disks require drivers).

It was a real kick in the keester when I discovered that Vista will not run on anything but an NTFS partition.

I've Googled up an article a while ago. It claimed that WinVista will refuse to install on a FAT32 partition, but would boot if copied to one manually. The article said you need MacOS and an USB harddisk, but basically you only needed another OS (such as WinXP) and be able to write the boot area. I haven't tested that myself due to lack of and need for a copy of Vista.

[Tarun]

1. Permissions can help if you have to share your computer with friends or guests. This can help stop malware and other baddies from infecting and rendering your computer useless. It is also very useful should you expand to a home network.
   
2. There is no degrading in performance or resources. None whatsoever. In actuality, your disks will read/write about 10 times (or more) faster.
   
3. I have personally repaired drives that have gone bad and had NTFS on them. You can still make backups easily, including drive images. There are tons of tools (including freeware tools) that can help you fix and recover any NTFS errors you encounter. Even the XP cd can help you fix the issues.
   
4. NTFS does not fragment easily at all. Yes, it still fragments. All drives will fragment regardless of what file system you have. FAT32 doesn't pay as much attention to the files and order as NTFS does. There are many benefits from running NTFS that will greatly speed up your computer.
   
5. You can easily replace files in Safe Mode, there are even programs that will automate the process for you. You actually can do everything you want in safe mode. If you're running a boot disk doing a drive scan, use NTFSDOS Pro from Winternals. There's also NTFS4DOS which is freeware found here.
   
6. I've never had a problem formatting a drive, though I always put NTFS on. If there was a customer running FAT on their XP machine, I'd convert it since they complained about how slow it was. Clocking boot time before was four to five minutes (from power on to usability). After was under two.
   
7. FAT is inefficient due to cluster size, speed, lack of security, does not support Unicode, no support for long file names, low fault tolerance, no recoverability and much much more.
   

Here are some links to get the facts straight:

Microsoft

Microsoft Expert

NTFS.com

Learn more

[nitroshift]

I agree with Tarun. NTFS is better than FAT32. Period.

[E-66]

I don't know what others' experiences are with defragging FAT32 partitions, but I found that XP defragged NTFS partitions at least 5x faster than Fat32 partitions.

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...mp;#entry621042

[j7n]

Microsoft wants you to believe that NTFS is the only reasonable choice. XP's performance with FAT32 should not be taken as indication of the quality of FAT32.

1. Which filesystem to choose for a disk depends on how you'll gonna be using that disk. Small cluster size, for example, would only slow down operations with the disk and provide no benefit, if you only store large multimedia files.

2. There is also no place for Unicode characters in filenames. You cannot possibly expect for every networking protocol or removable disk filesystem you're gonna be using (or software that operates with these disks) to support Unicode. Having special characters in filenames will probably render them inaccessible in future.

3. You might not need security permissions at all.

[Zxian]

@j7n - In the simple read/write scenario, FAT32 might be ever so slightly faster than NTFS, but over time, that quickly degrades. FAT (in all forms) has nothing in it's implementation to help slow down the rate of fragmentation (few filesystems can eliminate it altogether).

For some further reading, these Wikipedia pages contiain a lot of information - NTFS and FAT32.

It's not just Microsoft that "wants you to believe" that NTFS is better than FAT32. It's the truth.

[tap52384]

I'm not sure if this is a good example, but Windows Vista can only be installed using NTFS; additionally, why would Microsoft begin to give NTFS as an option besides FAT32 if there were benefits?

[severach]

There are benefits to NTFS like file security, joining a domain, large file support, integrated file compression, and faster performance for huge folders. Some of us don't need some features and desperately want to avoid the trouble caused by other. The "NTFS can be 10x faster than FAT32" is a ridiculous claim backed up with just as ridiculous Microsoft shill links while the opposite "FAT32 can be 10x faster than NTFS" can be true if the entire NTFS drive being compared has been compressed. FAT32 has good performance and is and equal or better choice in many situations. For anything other than carefully crafted situations FAT32 is consistently within 2% of NTFS. Performance is so close to equal so that is not a reason to choose one over the other. I like to have a drive that is read/write compatible with all operating systems so all my portable drives are FAT32.

Probably the best FAT32 feature of them all is that you can convert from FAT32 to NTFS any time it becomes necessary. You can't go the other way without a reformat.

>FAT32 might be ever so slightly faster than NTFS, but over time, that quickly degrades

Performance degrades in NTFS too and it doesn't "quickly" degrade because of FAT32. I use plenty of full FAT32 drives and they have no performance problems.

>XP's performance with FAT32 should not be taken as indication of the quality of FAT32

XP does not perform any more poorly with FAT32 than with NTFS.

>if you only store large multimedia files

If you store large multimedia files or DVD disk images you'll be using NTFS. FAT32 with the 4GB limit is not even an option.

>There is also no place for Unicode characters in filenames.

I see the claim all over the web that FAT32 doesn't support Unicode but I know that FAT32 stores unicode just fine. I went to a Japanese website in Firefox, copied some text, and saved the web page as that file name and it looks just right. Perhaps you're thinking of the problem of storing non unicode characters then changing the system locale which lame-o NTFS solves by locking the file system to the locale it was originally formatted as. The problem is Windows 2000 and below with atrocious or non existent Unicode support and without an OS that has mostly functional unicode support software unicode support will be just as poor. I could save the web page but it wouldn't launch with a double click. That isn't the fault of FAT32.

>at least 5x faster than Fat32 partitions

More ridiculous claims. An average performance delta greater than 2% is suspect. It takes specially crafted cases to get any more 2% and in some cases FAT32 has the advantage.

>NTFS is better than FAT32. Period.

Speak for yourself. NTFS is not better for everyone.

>Permissions can help if you have to share your computer with friends or guests. This can help stop malware

All I ever see is that permissions have been set on the malware to make it harder to remove. You are living in a dream world if you think that users can run as anything other than Administrator. Maybe Vista will fix this.

>There is no degrading in performance or resources

Neither NTFS nor FAT32 degrades much as they get full until they get to 99%.

>Clocking boot time before was four to five minutes (from power on to usability). After was under two.

You'll need more examples to back up an improvement as large as 10x or more.

http://www.bbspot.com/News/2007/04/google-...ne-storage.html

>You can easily replace files in Safe Mode

Safe mode is nearly useless because there are many locked and secured files and safe mode won't run if the drive is damaged enough. Those limitations are a show stopper so I use DOS instead.

>You actually can do everything you want in safe mode

Can I read the SAM in safe mode? Can I delete any key I want from the registry? I have a problem with Bill Gates telling me what I can and cannot do. FAT32 is one of my secret weapons that says that I can do with my computer what I want and Bill Gates is powerless to stop me. I don't care to run NTFS where Bill Gates has far more control over what I do. FAT32 is like MP3 and NTFS is like WMA. Sooner or later you'll get bitten by WMA and NTFS and will decide that it's not so good any more.

>FAT is inefficient due to cluster size, speed, lack of security, does not support Unicode, no support for long file names, low fault tolerance, no recoverability

FAT32 is efficient due to lack of security.

FAT32 supports Unicode.

FAT32 supports long file names.

FAT32 was the original recoverability. A long time later good recovery tools showed up for NTFS, no thanks to the dimwits at Microsoft who keep the NTFS spec secret. I'll get more interested in NTFS when the specification is released to the public in a timely fashion.

[GrofLuigi]

(snip)...FAT32 is efficient due to lack of security.

FAT32 supports Unicode.

FAT32 supports long file names.

FAT32 was the original recoverability. A long time later good recovery tools showed up for NTFS, no thanks to the dimwits at Microsoft who keep the NTFS spec secret. I'll get more interested in NTFS when the specification is released to the public in a timely fashion.

Excellent post! I agree with most (or all) of your point, and if you let me just add one more thing why FAT32 got badmouthed: The constant running of scandisk on Win9X after reboot, but it was Win9X that crashed, not the FAT itself. I rarely saw that one myself on a well 'cleaned' windows.

GL

[j7n]

If you store large multimedia files or DVD disk images you'll be using NTFS. FAT32 with the 4GB limit is not even an option.

I meant files at least 20 MB of length, for example music files in lossless format. Files bigger than 4 GB may be stored split into several parts (like it is on Video DVD). I was trying to point out that not everyone needs small clusters.