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Which is fastest, NTFS or FAT32?

#1 User is offline   Turbo Grunkamoj 

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Posted 02 April 2000 - 04:19 PM

Hi
I believe I have heard that NTFS(for win2k) is slower than fat32, but then I suddenly stumble across www.twead3d.net/tweak/win2kmem/2.shtml ,
Which states that NTFS is faster than FAT32?
Now which is right? Anybody that knows?
plz, Im soon on my way to reinstall my system due to a new harddrive, so It would be nice info.
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#2 User is offline   Turbo Grunkamoj 

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Posted 02 April 2000 - 06:16 PM

Well of course I made a mistake:
first posting the question, then remebering that "search-thingy" laugh
Sorry guys...found a few tips, though some say ntfs is faster, and some say the opposite.
/Turbo Grunkamoj
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#3 User is offline   r0cko 

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Posted 04 April 2000 - 10:42 AM

i read that same article and i changed my win2k partion which is only 1.5gb to NTFS and left my programs and MP3s on a 7gb FAT32 partion. i noticed a large improvement in system proformence. I use diskeeper to defrag and it says 0 file fragments in my FAT32 partion and only 4 temp files on my win2k partion are fragmented. i think its pretty sweet plus the drives being SCSI helps
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#4 User is offline   Turbo Grunkamoj 

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Posted 04 April 2000 - 02:51 PM

Nice to know....if anyone else have similar or totally different experiences, feel free to fill in...
You can never have to much info....
/Turbo Grunkamoj
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You could do it that way, but its not right.
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#5 User is offline   Spastic Computer Guru 

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Posted 06 April 2000 - 03:02 AM

I would use NTFS, I installed 2K on my comp, 2 partions both fat32, one 98 the other 2K.
It ran good for about 6 hours, when I rebooted it returned a non system disk error, then booted up in 98, which was on my second partition. 2K was no where to be found. After I did 1 NTFS partion for 2K and fat32 for 98, since I have not had a problem
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#6 User is offline   Radu175 

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Posted 07 April 2000 - 08:22 AM

I have a 10GB(well more lke 9.5GB) and I have a 6GB an a 3GB partition, i formatted c :(the 6gb) and installed win2k, w/NTFS
when I did so, i had unbearably delays when doing file management operations, I.E. the right click menu took about 1min to come up, when loading a folder with many files, it would take a long time(almost 2x as long as it would on drive D: a fat32 drive). i got so tired of it, and i couldnt remedy it, that i finally reformatted as Fat32 and installed win98 an win2k, dualbooting between them.
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#7 User is offline   Turbo Grunkamoj 

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Posted 07 April 2000 - 10:02 AM

That doesn't sound good.
Now I have a doubt... :I
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#8 User is offline   DocSilly 

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Posted 07 April 2000 - 09:07 PM

My 2 machines (PC and Laptop) are both NTFS only.
I have no performance issues here, everything is really fast.
My right-click menus open instantly, no delays there.
I tuned my system a little with TweakUI, I removed all file-entries for the NEW selection, disabled all the fancy fading effects and animations etc.

It never was a question for me to use NTFS once I changed to Win2000 only on my system.

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#9 User is offline   Turbo Grunkamoj 

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Posted 09 April 2000 - 04:17 AM

Well I went ahead and did my reinstall, mainly cause my C:-partition was to small before...so I put ntfs on that, and I dont know if I can make any decrease or increase but why the hell not smile
On the down-side, I make q3-maps on the side and during the reinstall I "forgot" my map-file so that is screwed... frown
But hey, **** HAPPENS...so get used to it, and since I cant blame anyone else but me and my stupidity, thats all there is to it.
/Turbo Grunkamoj
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#10 User is offline   r0cko 

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Posted 09 April 2000 - 08:40 PM

that will teach you to back up your work
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#11 User is offline   Turbo Grunkamoj 

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Posted 10 April 2000 - 01:45 AM

As I said, I cant blame none but my own stupidity....
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#12 User is offline   Dirdian 

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Posted 11 April 2000 - 01:10 AM

Because of the way NTFS stores the directory structure it is extremely fast at indexing (locating and reading individual file headers) and is therefore only of real use on large partitions. NTFS partitions also have better recovery information should a failure occur.

Try a find files on a NTFS and compare that to a FAT32.
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#13 User is offline   Arin 

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Posted 13 April 2000 - 06:19 PM

NTFS IS BETTER.
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#14 User is offline   c5rlh 

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Posted 13 April 2000 - 09:11 PM

I have to agree - NTFS is more stable, faster, better for indexing, and just much happier full stop.
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#15 User is offline   KalleAnka 

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Posted 14 April 2000 - 10:18 AM

My opinion is that you can't feel any difference in speed, but you can without a doubt hear a diffrence. The NTFS partitions make a lot more noice than FAT 32 partitions. I know this might sound strange, but I always thougt my disk made a lot of noice compared to one of my friends that had the same sort of drive. In the end the only difference between us was the file system, so i changed mine to FAT 32 and the sound level droped a LOT.
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#16 User is offline   Summoner 

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Posted 14 April 2000 - 03:02 PM

NTFS is the better system, but it has a big prob: if you want to change it u must use win2k...yesterday i reinst win2k (i got a geforce, yay) and there was no way exxcept to repartition the hd and kill everything on it...big mess ( i almost fried my floppy shocked but it's k now.

anyway, i made my c 2gb, only for windows, and fat32. the other partitions i made ntfs. win2k is in the memory when you use the pc, so i don't think it matters much on a 2gb partition, and besides, now i can reinst without killing all the data

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#17 User is offline   Ge0ph 

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Posted 14 April 2000 - 05:08 PM

You should put your data on a different partition. Doing so makes backups and disaster recovery alot easier. Some might say FAT32 is better for your data parition but I prefer NTFS just for the extra features it gives you.
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#18 User is offline   PseudoMan 

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Posted 14 April 2000 - 08:07 PM

The main differance between FAT32 and NTFS is security. FAT32 can be accessed by any OS which supports FAT32, say a Win98 boot disk. NTFS has security features which can be changed to make it so that only a particular user has access to the files/folder/partition. This can make it a real pain if your OS gets hosed though.

As for speed... there really isn't much diffrence between FAT32 and NTFS. NTFS is slightly faster.
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#19 User is offline   Glove 

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Posted 15 April 2000 - 01:29 AM

NTFS is by far a superior file system. FAT32 is a hacked together peice of crap. They are in NO way even similar. FAT32 stores everything in what is known as a Linked List. It has a begining and an end, like this;
File1 - File2 - File3......FileN.

To get to FileN, the computer starts at File1 and follows the list down. This is very slow.

NTFS, however, stores files in what is known as a B-Tree. This stores files in a tre structure like this;

File1
/ \
File2 File3
/ \ / \
File4 File5.......

This makes accessing files very fast because the problem size is cut in half at each level of the list.

So, to answer the question, NTFS is far superior.
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#20 User is offline   Rudy 

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Posted 15 April 2000 - 01:45 AM

I agree with the sound issue. I just installed W98 in dual-boot config and it is much quieter. Anyone knows what the reason could be? I use an IBM 7200 RPM 13 Gigs BTW.
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