HTFS not FAT 32

[thewolfe]

HTFS not FAT 32

I just installed a Slave Maxtor 120GB ATA 133 HD for a backup & storage. I went to format it and it gives me an option of NTFS or HTSF, not FAT32.

My master is FAT 32.

Can I tranfer info between the to drives, one being HTFS & the other FAT32.

Arte there problems to cosider?

 

[Nodsu]

What program is that you want to format the drive with?
Windows has a practical limitation of around 30GB for FAT32 so you can't format the whole drive using that.

Any problems you may encounter while copying between filesystems are incompatibility of file name formats and permissions. As long as your OS supports both, you can freely copy files with little trouble.

 

[need2know2grow]

You can format the drive in Fat32, just partition out sections of 30GB according to the above post so there will be 30GB. I'm sure that FAT32 can handle more than 30GB though off my head... any comments welcome.

I'm pretty sure that you might Have trouble with HPFS and FAT32 but I have seen many great tools that makes NTFS systems available to view on Win 98 and Win9x systems. ... Pretty sure it is made by Paragon (They also have tools to make EXT2 and 3 file systems viewable and copyable on Windows Computers)

 

[Phantasm66]

You can format with either file system with no problems.

Your operating system (if its Windows 2000 or XP) can read FAT, FAT32, and NTFS.

There's no real reason not to go with NTFS unless you are concerned about some backward compatibility issues such as dual booting with win98, etc.

Furthermore, FAT32 is rubbish on partitions over 32GB, so I would give serious thought to the use of NTFS on partitions larger than that.

 

[Justin]

As mentioned above, FAT32 cannot be used if the partition exceeds 32GB in size. Also, FAT32 gets a huge performance hit when using it with larger ( > 10GB ) partition in which NTFS does not suffer from.

 

[thewolfe]

I have used NTSF. W/ FAT32 I had to use 4 partitions to use the whole drive.

However, the sharing for NTSF is a little more complicated in that you can not just share the drive but must share every main folder on the drive.

Thanks for the info.

 

[Phantasm66]

Originally posted by Soul Harvester
As mentioned above, FAT32 cannot be used if the partition exceeds 32GB in size. Also, FAT32 gets a huge performance hit when using it with larger ( > 10GB ) partition in which NTFS does not suffer from.

Actually, FAT32 can be up to 2 Terabytes in size, so there is no problem with being bigger than 32GB.

Its just that its performance with volumes over 32GB is rubbish.

And the cluster sizes are huge.

Under 32GB, there should be no problems at all. In theory.

 

[Justin]

Originally posted by Phantasm66
Actually, FAT32 can be up to 2 Terabytes in size, so there is no problem with being bigger than 32GB.

Its just that its performance with volumes over 32GB is rubbish.

And the cluster sizes are huge.

Under 32GB, there should be no problems at all. In theory.

Under windows XP I cannot format a partition greater then 32GB with fat32 nor can I create a new partition as FAT32 that is greater then 32GB in size. If you know a way around this, let me know.

 

[Nodsu]

Yep.. 2TB is the theoretical maximum. Windows FAT32 implementation has a limit of 32GB. Don't know about Linux, etc.

 

[SNGX1275]

Originally posted by Soul Harvester
Under windows XP I cannot format a partition greater then 32GB with fat32 nor can I create a new partition as FAT32 that is greater then 32GB in size. If you know a way around this, let me know.

Partition Magic will do it.

 

[Phantasm66]

Originally posted by Soul Harvester
Under windows XP I cannot format a partition greater then 32GB with fat32 nor can I create a new partition as FAT32 that is greater then 32GB in size. If you know a way around this, let me know.

I was not sure about this (since I recall quite clearly having accessed FAT32 partitions over 32GB under Windows 2000), however I found this on knowledgebase:

FAT32 supports drives up to 2 terabytes in size.

NOTE: Microsoft Windows 2000 only supports FAT32 partitions up to a size of 32 GB.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;154997

In any case, the cluster sizes over 32GB are huge:

Drive size Cluster size
------------------------------------
Less than 512 MB Not Available
512 MB - 8191 MB 4 KB
8192 MB - 16,383 MB 8 KB
16,384 MB - 32,767 MB 16 KB
32,768 MB and larger 32 KB

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;179194

Basic answer - you can't really use FAT32 for partitions over 32GB under Windows 2000 unless you partition with third party tools like Partition Magic. But then again, I would not bother.

 

[Justin]

Hmmm... interesting... I guess I have never tried to make a FAT32 partition that large outside of windows. The only partitioning tools I ever use are FDISK for DOS/98, LDM in 2k/XP, and FDISK for Linux.