Whats the difference between FAT & NTFS?

Can you provide detail report on it.

Fat [ file allocation table ] is the storage format used on windows 3.x, fat32 is windows 9.x. Fat being 16bit and fat32 32bit obviously. Fat had limitations in that it could only handle had drives partitioned into 2gb sectors and file names of up to 11 characters [ including the extension ]. Fat32 saw this improve with alowing file names of up to 255 characters and much larger disk paritions [ not sure of the exact size but i know its big ]. Ntfs [ new technology file system ] was intorduced with the nt operating systems [ like 2000, me, xp ] and is basicaly a more efficiant version of fat32. It also allows large contigous files and better features. Ntfs files cannot be read on a system using an o/s older than nt. A nt o/s is not supposed to be able to read or locate files on a fat storage device but there is a driver that can be downloaded that give nt the ability to do this. The difference between a quick format and normal is just the time taken and how well the drive is formatted. A normal format will make sure everything is gone, a quick just makes the disk writable. Similar to how a you get to choose between quick and full when formatting a floppy disk.

Ntfs vs fat

operting system
ntfs5: 2k/xp
ntfs: nt/2k/xp
fat32: 98/nt/2k/xp
fat16: dos & all versions of windows limitations max volume size
ntfs5: 2tb
ntfs: 2tb
fat32: 2tb
fat16: 2gb max files on volume
ntfs5: nearly unlimited
ntfs: nearly unlimited
fat32: nearly unlimited
fat16: ~65000

max file size
ntfs5: limit only by volume size
ntfs: limit only by volume size
fat32: 4gb
fat16: 2gb

max clusters number
ntfs5: nearly unlimited
ntfs: nearly unlimited
fat32: 268435456
fat16: 65535 max file name length
ntfs5: up to 255
ntfs: up to 255
fat32: up to 255
fat16: standard - 8.3
fat16: extended - up to 255 file system features unicode file names
ntfs5: unicode character set
ntfs: unicode character set
fat32: system character set
fat16: system character set system records mirror
ntfs5: mft mirror file
ntfs: mft mirror file
fat32: second copy of fat
fat16: second copy of fat boot sector location
ntfs5: first and last sectors
ntfs: first and last sectors
fat32: first sector
fat16: first sector file attributes
ntfs5: standard and custom
ntfs: standard and custom
fat32: standard set
fat16: standard set alternate streams
ntfs5 & ntfs: yes
fat32 & fat16: no

compression
ntfs5 & ntfs: yes
fat32 & fat16: no encryption
ntfs5: yes
ntfs, fat32, fat16: no object permissions
ntfs5 & ntfs: yes
fat32 & fat16: no disk quotas
ntfs5: yes
ntfs, fat32, fat16: no sparse files
ntfs5: yes
ntfs, fat32, fat16: no reparse points
ntfs5: yes
ntfs, fat32, fat16: no volume mount points
ntfs5: yes
ntfs, fat32, fat16: no

overall performance built-in security
ntfs5 & ntfs: yes
fat32 & fat16: no recoverability
ntfs5 & ntfs: yes
fat32 & fat16: no

performance
ntfs5 & ntfs: low on small volumes, high on large
fat32 & fat16: high on small volumes, low on large disk space economy
ntfs5: max
ntfs: max
fat32: average
fat16: minimal on large volumes fault tolerance
ntfs5: max
ntfs: max
fat32: minimal
fat16: average

fat file system is not have compressing facilites than ntfs have this facilites

what is the differance between fat32 and ntfs formatting

HI,


FAT (File Allocation Table) and NTFS (New Technology File System) are both types of file systems on our operating system. We can choose any of them, but from Windows NT onwards, NTFS has become more popular. FAT has also got different versions like FAT12, FAT16 and FAT32, but now FAT32 is more prevalent of them.

What you will use in your computer will be decided on the performance, disk size, security, reliability and so on. You can even use both the file systems on a single computer. Below I will discuss, some basic differences between FAT32 file system and NTFS file system, so that you can get some basic idea of differences between them:

1. As the performance is better in NTFS file system, it is better to use NTFS file system if your partition is above 400 MB; whereas you should not use FAT32 file system above 400 MB because the performance of FAT32 file system degrades as the volume increases.

2. You should use FAT32 file system if your partition is below 400 MB, because if you use NTFS file system, the overhead of using it will be more.

3. Maximum size of partition that you can make using FAT32 file system is 2 TB (terabytes); whereas there is not such limitation as to now in NTFS file system.

4. Maximum file size in FAT32 file system is 2 GB (gigabytes); whereas maximum file size in NTFS file system is 16 TB (terabytes).

5. There is no file encryption built into NTFS file system, so anyone can access your files using low level programming. Whereas, in FAT32 file system file encryption is there.

6. There is no way of formatting a floppy disk in NTFS file system because of the overhead involved in running the file system, but there is no such problem in FAT32 file system.

7. NTFS file system supports the all the POSIX requirement; whereas FAT32 does not support them.

8. FAT32 file system is generally is used on Windows 95, Windows 98, Linux and other such previous operating systems; whereas in modern operating systems like Windows NT, Windows XP, Windows Vista etc., NTFS file system is more prevalent. Although you can still use FAT32 file system on them, but performance will surely degrade.

9. Nowadays, NTFS file system is more widely used because the storage devices (hard disks) are getting bigger and bigger; FAT32 is less used nowadays.

So, from the above differences we can see that NTFS file system is the file system of new world and will be more widely used as our hard disks will become bigger and bigger!


THANKS,

NARESH KUMAR C.A.

The difference between FAT and NTFS
there are two types
FAT12: file system should be 512MB
FAT16:file system should be <2GB for single partion then only we can format FAT16 otherwise not possible
FAT32:it can support upto 42GB
NTFS: it can support upto 2TB
windows 95 supportsnly FAT16
windows 98 supports:both FAT16,FAT32,but not NTFS
windows XP supports:FAT16,FAT32, NTFS