FAT or NTFS?

[Mekanic01]

Gonna be installing Windows XP on a fresh 80gb hard drive, finally worked up from the old 20gb. Just have questions.

1. What is the difference between the two?

2. Which should I use.


My main purpose for this computer is gaming, the 80gb hard drive is a WD 80gb SE.

Thanks...

 

[t5brick]

i'd stick with NTFS, more secure and less likely to corrupt files. (i think)

 

[dewhite]

NTFS. Unless...

The only reason I'd stick with FAT32 is if you had a Linux dualboot and you wanted to be able to write to your windows partition from linux without the proposition of "UNRECOVERABLE FILE SYSTEM DAMAGE" - as UFED refers to it...

 

[oqvist]

Originally posted by Mekanic01
Gonna be installing Windows XP on a fresh 80gb hard drive, finally worked up from the old 20gb. Just have questions.

1. What is the difference between the two?

2. Which should I use.


My main purpose for this computer is gaming, the 80gb hard drive is a WD 80gb SE.

Thanks...

Well either you do it the easy way FAT 32 or you format with NTFS using 16 or 32 kb cluster size. You do waste some hard drive space probably but you gain in performance.

The default cluster size for NTFS is 4 kb.

 

[Mekanic01]

32kb? I don't think I would miss that from 80gb

 

[ilkhan]

32kb cluster refers the smallest allocatable unit on the disc. So a 1byte text file takes the same space as 32KB text file.

Depending on how many and what sized files you have on the disc, it can be a pretty big waste of space.

 

[dewhite]

Not that I think you are retarded or anything. But, this guy might benefit from an explanation why 16 or 32Kb cluster size would be preferable from the default 4Kb size.

 

[oqvist]

Originally posted by dewhite
Not that I think you are retarded or anything. But, this guy might benefit from an explanation why 16 or 32Kb cluster size would be preferable from the default 4Kb size.

Well to put it simple. Faster reading from disk since it don´t have to hop around as much.

For gaming 16 kb or even 32 kb offers the best performance but as said you do waste some harddrive space.

 

[stevewm]

Having a large cluster size only helps when loading a large contiguous file. Such as a large video or audio file.

For gaming or normal desktop use there is little to no benefits.

When loading a bunch of small, non-contiguous files, a large cluster size is actually DETRIMENTAL to performance.

4KB is the best size to use for a NTFS drive.

 

[oqvist]

Originally posted by stevewm
Having a large cluster size only helps when loading a large contiguous file. Such as a large video or audio file.

For gaming or normal desktop use there is little to no benefits.

When loading a bunch of small, non-contiguous files, a large cluster size is actually DETRIMENTAL to performance.

4KB is the best size to use for a NTFS drive.

Actually I know some hardware Guru that indead find having a larger Cluster size helps a lot in games like IL 2 FB. But generally most game files aren´t only 4 kb in size.

So overall for gaming definiatly go 16 or 32 bit. That is the settings you mostly get the most performance out of.

 

[Ice Czar]

too sleepy to answer the question
so I'll cut and paste an answer

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

FAT32 vs NTFS @ AnandTech

NTFS vs FAT

So why use FAT?..... It can be the best choice for small volumes because its simple nature and low overhead make it fast on these volumes

NTFS Performance
"NTFS is also built for speed. NTFS provides impressive disk I/O performance on large volumes such as those on file servers or advanced workstations and is the best file system for such machines. This performance gain applies only to volumes larger than 400MB because of NTFS's overhead from its security and reliability features.

NTFS uses a binary tree structure for all disk directories, which reduces the number of times the system has to access the disk to locate files. This system is best for large directories, and NT easily outperforms FAT in these situations. In addition, NTFS automatically sorts files in a folder on the fly.

Another performance-related feature is NTFS's resistance to file fragmentation. NTFS uses a special process of writing files to disk. This process minimizes file fragmentation by making intelligent choices about where to store file data on the disk. In contrast to FAT's first-available method, NTFS's method of writing files reduces, but does not eliminate, the problem of file fragmentation on NTFS volumes.

NT also gains an edge over FAT by using relatively small disk allocation units (cluster sizes) for NTFS volumes. Smaller clusters prevent wasted disk space on volumes, especially those with numerous small files. Table 2 lists the default cluster sizes for various NTFS volumes sizes.

As Table 2 shows, the largest NTFS cluster size is 4KB, even on volumes larger than 2GB. Because NTFS uses small clusters better and has a more efficient design, its performance doesn't degrade with large volumes, in contrast to FAT's.

When you format an NT volume, NT chooses a cluster size to fit the volume size. With NTFS, you can select the cluster size for the volume when you use the FORMAT command from the NT command prompt (this solution is not possible from Disk Administrator). To set the cluster size, use the /A switch with the FORMAT command as follows: FORMAT <drive>/FS:<filesystem /A: <unitsize>

Despite the flexibility this feature provides, you generally won't need to specify manual NTFS cluster sizes. NT can automatically configure them for you. NT works best with volumes at the settings it specifies, and changing these settings can adversely affect your system's performance.

Indexing can seriously impact performance

while there is a performance decrease in some volumes
that is offset by the security and reliability of NTFS in many cases

Reliability
In addition to its extensive memory and application protection features, NTFS is a reliable file system. When storing data to disk, NTFS records file I/O events to a special transaction log. If the system crashes or encounters an interruption, NT can use this log to restore the volume and prevent corruption from an abnormal program termination or system shutdown. NTFS doesn't commit an action to disk until it verifies the successful completion of the action. This precaution helps prevent corruption of an NTFS volume and makes NTFS especially solid for data storage on standalone systems and network file servers.

NTFS also supports hot-fixing disk sectors, where the OS automatically blocks out bad disk sectors and relocates data from these sectors. This housecleaning happens in the background. An application attempting to read or write data on a hot-fixed area will never know the disk had a problem.

few more links
(not sure where you found the other links, you may have read these)
Converting FAT32 to NTFS in XP Must read

NTFS Advanced Studies
NTFS Volume Management and HKLM\System\DiskKey
NTFS Boot INI Options Reference
NTFS Defragmenting
Inside W2K NTFS Part 1
Inside W2K NTFS Part 2
Exploring NTFS On-Disk Structures
Inside Storage Management, Part 1
Inside storage Management Part 2 Basic vs Dynamic Disks
Inside Encrypting File System Part 1
Inside Encrypting File System Part 2
Inside Memory Management Paging Files

 

[oqvist]

Great links Ice Czar!

Are there any NTFS 4 kb against 32 kb for gaming purposes benchmarks

Some things about that article I don´t understand.

How can NTFS know that I want to game on my computer and don´t mind wasting disk space for a small ev performance gain

 

[defcom_1]

I don't think it matters at all. Why? because the difference is close to irrelevant in terms of cluster sizes. yes, the "performance" goes up, but is it actually noticeable in real-world everday applications? (i.e. games etc, don't argue about massive databases or multil TB video editing apps etc...that's not what we're talking about).
Your load time may decrease by a second or so...and that's it. after that, it's running out of ram anyway. yes it loads stuff from the drive during the game, but I doubt that cluster size will impact the performance in any human-mesurable way. A default cluster size on an NTFS partition is a fast, stable, and reliable way to go, especially for large file systems.

 

[oqvist]

Originally posted by defcom_1
I don't think it matters at all. Why? because the difference is close to irrelevant in terms of cluster sizes. yes, the "performance" goes up, but is it actually noticeable in real-world everday applications? (i.e. games etc, don't argue about massive databases or multil TB video editing apps etc...that's not what we're talking about).
Your load time may decrease by a second or so...and that's it. after that, it's running out of ram anyway. yes it loads stuff from the drive during the game, but I doubt that cluster size will impact the performance in any human-mesurable way. A default cluster size on an NTFS partition is a fast, stable, and reliable way to go, especially for large file systems.

Yeah but if you are an optimizer you may want to optimize every part of your computer. It´s like why enable fast writes on video card or play with Aperture size?

But anyway. I am thinking of having a gaming partition with 32 kb cluster size. One for apps of 16 kb cluster size and my old junk harddrive I will have at 4 kb cluster size to store items in. But eventually I will just have an 80 Mb gaming harddrive and one app and junk 4 kb cluster size harddrive. Except for windows XP of course which I will have on my gaming harddrive so I don´t loose performance.

 

[stub]

Unless youre running some sort of database or webserver off of your computer, there is not much reason not to go with a 16k cluster size with NTFS. What I am curious about is how to tell windows to make it a 16 or 32 k cluster size when it installs...

 

[oqvist]

Originally posted by stub
Unless youre running some sort of database or webserver off of your computer, there is not much reason not to go with a 16k cluster size with NTFS. What I am curious about is how to tell windows to make it a 16 or 32 k cluster size when it installs...

format A:32 or perhaps it´s format /s A:32 to give you 32 k cluster size.

And it do have an effect even if you not having a database or webserver. I don´t know but I got 1 gig of RAM and the hdd led still lit´s up about 1 ever 2 seconds. Probably more in game.