[Ham-Computers] RE: Why Fat32

[Hsu, Aaron (NBC Universal)]

Phil (et al),

It seems you already got the answer "straight from the horses mouth"
<g>.

If configuring a system for the "general public", it's always better to
err on the side of compatibility.  Therefore, FAT32 is the "better"
choice as there is an app in Win2K/XP that allows you to convert FAT32
partitions to NTFS (but not the other way around).

Key reasons to stay with FAT32:
*  Compatibility.
*  Ease of troubleshooting - you can boot from a DOS floppy and access
the contents of the drive.
*  Ease of data access - same as above.
*  Generally "faster" than NTFS - less overhead.
*  "Simpler" to use - don't have to worry about permissions.

Key reasons to move to NTFS
*  Better security via file permissions
*  More efficient - smaller clusters means less "slack" space.
*  Journaled file system - all transactions are written to a journal
before being permanently written to the drive.  If the system locks or
the power fails, NTFS will salvage and write data in the journal that
was not "committed" yet.  Helps prevent data loss.
*  Allows virtually unlimited filesizes - FAT32's maximum filesize is
4GB. - important if working on large files (such as videos).

There are other pros/cons, but these cover the key topics.  For most
"home" users, FAT32 is just fine unless you need to work with large
(>4GB) files.  Moving to NTFS gives the benefit of creating larger files
and more efficient use of drive space.  In a work environment where data
security is a bit more important, then NTFS is the better choice.

Someone earlier mentioned that the reason DOS can't read NTFS is because
of the length of the filenames.  It's not the filename lengths, but the
underlying data "structure" that makes DOS unable to read NTFS.
Basically, it's like the difference between the "Dewey Decimal" and the
"Library of Congress" systems of sorting books in a library - both do
the same thing, but use completely different methods.

BTW, Phil, how did they setup the two 80GB drives?  As two separate
volumes or as a single RAID0?  By your description (short 10GB for the
recovery partition), it sounds like two separate volumes.

73,

  - Aaron, NN6O


-----Original Message-----
Sent: Sunday, November 06, 2005 3:27 PM
Subject: [Ham-Computers] Why Fat32


Hi all,

Just a quick question here.  Not to long ago I received my new computer 
(built to order Systemax).  It has dual 80GB SATA drives (Western 
Digital) and is running XP Pro (fastest critter I've ever seen).

One thing that I noticed is that they have the drives set up as FAT32 
rather than NTFS (which I used on the old machine running XP Pro).  I 
was under the impression that the NTFS file system is the "preferred" 
system for XP as it is more efficient and secure than the older FAT32.  
Can anyone here think of some good reasons that Systemax may have set 
the drives up as FAT32?  Could the Hyper Threading processor (Pentium 4,

551 cpu) have anything to do with it?

No I don't intend to change it as the machine has a one year on-site 
warranty and I don't want to mess that up.  It just has my curiosity 
aroused.

73 de Phil  KO6BB