difference between NTFS, FAT 32 and FAT 16?

Question

What is NTFS? FAT 32 and FAT 16? i am installing window XP. what are the differences? whats better for my XP?

Thanks

Answer 1

The FAT32 and FAT16 were older formats of hard drives. Typically, newer computers used the NTFS format.

To compare, just look through these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/file_Allocation_table

Answer 2

FAT 16 is an old file system used in DOS and 3.x. A FAT 16 partition can be a maximum of 4GB. FAT 32 is a revised version of FAT 16 and can be used in larger partitions. FAT 32 was used in Windows 98. Both FAT 16 and FAT 32 has weak error recovery and file security. NTFS is more secure and is used by Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 2003 Server, and Windows Vista. You'd be better off with NTFS unless you need backwards compatibility with older OSes like Windows 95 or 98.

Answer 3

I lived this developement nightmare. The FAT file system was invented by Bill Gates in the year 1976. That is how old it is. Without tons of technical arguements, the simple explanation of the difference between the NTFS and FAT file system is that the FAT 32 file system has a practical limit of about 130 gigabytes, on a Windows XP, 98 or 2000 operating System. The NTFS system is designed to work on disk drives that are over a terra-byte. The 16 after the FAT indicates the number of bits used for the disk addressing system. The 32 after the FAT means that there are 32 bits of addressing for this format system. More addressing bits means a file system with more storage capability. Ergo, a modern PC that is using the Windows XP operating system, will work with both types of file systems, as long as the disk drive does not exceed practical limit of 127.53 gigabytes for the FAT 32 file system. There are ways of playing with cluster, sector and file sizes that extends the limits of the FAT file system beyond the 130 gigabyte practical limit. However, the limits of the Windows operating systems have kept the practical size of the system to 127.53 gigabytes with extended partition enhancements. To go beyond the 130 gigabyte practical limit would mean reducing file sizes to an unaccdeptable level. This is because the FAT file system was not originally designed for disk drives over 64 gigabytes on a Windows operating system. The FAT file system had to be developed to accomodate disk drives that exceeded 64 gigabytes on Windows. This includes the correction to the Windows 98 operating system which caused Windows to falsely report disk space beyond 64 gigabytes. You will find that the 127.53 gigabyte size limit is the Partition Magic limit for the FAT file system on a Windows operating system. This means that if you buy a new disk drive that is over 127.53 gigabytes, that it will work on the Windows operating system, with the FAT file system, but it will only see a maximum of 130 gigabytes of disk space, even if the disk is 500 gigabytes. Additionally, the older Windows 98 operating systems may require that you use third party software, like Partition Magic, to get the drive to recognize the full 127.53 gigabytes on a drive that is larger than130 gigabytes. For this reason, all modern PCs work best with NTFS. NTFS also uses a more efficient file overhead system.

Answer 4

NTFS - NT File System. Fat 32 - 32 bit file size only good for up to 64 gb hard drive. Fat 16 - is 16 bit file system and is only goood for windows 3.1. For installing Win XP NTFS is more secure.

Answer 5

There's a lot to explain here. Shortly: you don't have local security with FAT 16 & 32, that's the most important thing to know. If you're installing 2000/XP, there's absolutely no reason to use FAT other than to access with Win95/98 files from XP/2000. Go with NTFS!
http://www.alldigitall.net

Answer 6

Fat 16 is the old style file system(pre win98)it is used in 98 but win 98 has a utility that can convert FAT to FAT32. It uses less disk space than win95(FAT). WinXP can run both FAT32 and NTFS. FAT32 can store more data efficently then FAT(FAT16)and NTFS more than FAT32. Better means less disk space. WinXp was bulit upon the winNT technology so in turn NTFS is best for XP(and Vista)

Answer 7

NTFS is the best choice by far. It's more stable.

FAT32 and especially FAT16 are limited in the hard drive size they support.

Answer 8

ntfs is the newer better file system. go with it

Answer 9

FAT 16 File System

The FAT 16 file system was introduced with MS–DOS and was in use through the first version of Windows 95. It was originally designed to index files on a floppy drive and also on hard drives up to a capacity of 2.1 Gigabytes. Therefore, if you have a 6 GB hard drive you would need to create three individual partitions under FAT 16 to utilize the entire hard drive. In addition, your hard disk is divided into 512-byte pieces called sectors, which are then grouped into larger pieces called clusters. Therefore, the maximum number of clusters that the FAT 16 system can manage is 65,535, and in order to stay within this limit on larger hard disks, the FAT 16 system increases the size of the clusters accordingly. For instance, a 512MB (megabyte) hard disk uses 8KB (kilobyte) clusters, a 850MB hard disk uses 16KB clusters, and a 1.2GB (gigabyte) hard disk uses 32KB clusters and so on.

Therefore, once you get to a 1.2GB hard disk, the size of a cluster grows so large that the storage system becomes very inefficient, especially if you have many small files on your hard disk. No matter how small the file is, it will consume at least one 32KB cluster. For instance, if you store a 1KB file on a 1.2GB hard disk, that small file will take up an entire 32KB of space. The remaining 31KB will be empty. The empty space in a cluster is called slack space. Since the operating system can not write any more data into the slack space, it’s completely wasted.

FAT 32 File System

The FAT32 file system was introduced in the second version of Windows 95, often know as Windows 95B or OSR2. It is really just an extension of the original FAT16 file system in order to remain compatible with existing programs, networks, and device drivers. The biggest improvement in FAT 32 is its ability to efficiently manage storage space on today’s larger hard drives. It can handle disks larger than 2GB and format them with a single partition thereby allowing you to assign a single drive letter to your drive.

In addition, the FAT 32 file system only uses a 4KB cluster size for all hard disks under 8 Gigabytes. This reduces the amount of slack space found on your hard disk when you save small files to your drive. As mentioned earlier, a 1KB file takes up 32KB of space on a 1GB hard disk using the old FAT 16 file system. However, a 1KB file on the same hard disk using the FAT32 system takes up only 4KB of space, a savings of 28KB. This may sound trivial, but when you are dealing with an entire hard disk that has thousands of files, the savings is actually dramatic and even Microsoft claims that you will achieve at least 10 to 15 percent more efficient use of disk space on the average large hard disk.

FAT32 has some other advantages over the FAT 16 file system in regards to improved reliability. For example, under the FAT 16 file system, the root directory is located only at the beginning of the hard disk. If anything were to happen to this section of the hard disk, such as the development of bad sectors, the whole drive will become unusable as the file index will become damaged. Therefore, one will have to seek out special disk recovery tools to try to recover the data, which more than likely will be unsuccessful. By using the FAT 32 file system, the root directory can be located anywhere on the hard disk. Therefore, if anything happens to the section of the hard disk storing the root directory, the FAT 32 file system’s built in utilities will be able to move the root directory to a safe location on the hard disk and repair the defective area. In addition, the FAT 32 file system can use both the default and the backup copy of the File Allocation Table. This means that if something were to happen to the default FAT, your system will continue to run by using the backup copy until the default can be repaired.

NTFS - New Technology File System

The NTFS file system was introduced with the first version of Windows NT (New Technology) and is a completely different file system from FAT 16 and Fat 32. Microsoft actually designed it to be more stable, reliable and offer end users greatly increased security.

Access rights can be assigned to files and directories, allowing users full access, partial access or no access at all to that data stored on your hard disk.

File and directory compression can be performed directly without the need for third party utilities as this feature is now built into the file system.

Disk quotas can be assigned, limiting the amount of disk space that users can access on a particular partition on the hard drive.

Built in Encryption where The NTFS 5.0 file system can automatically encrypt and decrypt file data as it is read and written to the hard disk.

Support for large hard disks, with a theoretical limit up to 2 TeraBytes (TB).

Support for long file names to 255 characters as well as "8 by 3" names.

File names are in Unicode, allowing people in countries not using the Latin alphabet (e.g., Greece, Japan, India, Russia, and Israel) to write file names in their native language.

Using The FAT And/Or The NTFS File System

If you plan on running more than one operating system on your computer, often referred to Dual Booting, you will definitely need to format some of your volumes with the FAT file system. Any programs or data that need to be accessed by more than one operating system should be stored on the FAT volume(s). But do keep in mind that there is no security for data stored on a FAT16 or FAT32 volume. Therefore, any user with access to the computer, either directly or across a network can read, change, or even delete files that are stored on a FAT16 or FAT32 partition. Therefore, you definitely do want to store any sensitive files on drives or partitions formatted with NTFS file systems.