Should I reformat my External HD

[jussi]

I got a new Western Digital External HD and find it's formatted as FAT32. Should I format as NTFS? Why or why not?

[RayintheUK]

The FAT32 system - generally - uses a larger cluster size than NTFS. This means that, whatever the actual size of the files you save, they occupy space in larger multiples, depending on disk size (see here for details).

The maximum default cluster size under Windows XP is 4 KB which is more space-efficient than FAT32 and it's intended to be more reliable too.

XP was intended to be used with NTFS (as were all Windows systems since Windows 2000). I use NTFS over FAT32 every time. Eventually, there won't be a choice, I'd guess, with everything on the PC platform using NTFS. HTH

Ray

[herb fellows]

Almost exactly what I was going to say, but Ray beat me to it :-0
Only one caveat, you must be using at least Windows xp to do this, earlier versions like windows 98 or me won't support it.

[cgallery]

If you're only going to use it on Windows systems, by all means. If you plan on moving it between Windows, Mac (and other Ix) machines, then give some consideration to whether all the O/S's you plan to use can use NTFS before doing so.

[LCHIEN]

I always use NTFS.

Mass storage devices come with FAT32 because its the lowest common denominator - it doesn't give the best performance/features but almost everything will work with it.

[LinuxRandal]

Fat32 will be around a while yet, as it is used on so many flash based cards/usb devices. There are some differences between the versions of NTFS, that MAY run you into issues, if formating on a newer pc, and trying to use on an old one (been a while since I played with NTFS). You could get around that issue by network sharing the drive though (instead of USB connections).

What size of files do you need to save? Fat32's max file size if 4gb. That is one other aspect to look at.

[pelligrini]

If you haven't put any data on it yet, I'd go NTFS.

Here's a pretty good comparision chart.
http://www.ntfs.com/ntfs_vs_fat.htm

[jussi]

Fat32 will be around a while yet, as it is used on so many flash based cards/usb devices. There are some differences between the versions of NTFS, that MAY run you into issues, if formating on a newer pc, and trying to use on an old one (been a while since I played with NTFS). You could get around that issue by network sharing the drive though (instead of USB connections).

What size of files do you need to save? Fat32's max file size if 4gb. That is one other aspect to look at.

Thanks guys, you've made the decision pretty easy for me. I have no plans on using any OS below XP or Macs and some of the files will be video files which can be well over 4gb so I guess I'll be using NTFS. I actually experienced this last night as I was transferring some video I made on AE and it kept on telling me my external was full even though it was far from it. I tried the same thing with my 8bg flash drive and got the same results.

So would it also be a good idea to format the flash drive to NTFS as well?

[radhak]

If you use your flash drives a lot, then I'd think twice before going NTFS.

NTFS produces much more wear and tear on the drive which will cause it to wear out much faster; this is because NTFS is a journaling files system and hence reads and writes to files much more often than the FAT systems.

Of course, it only means you might need to buy your next flash drive a bit sooner, which may not be a big deal...

[dbhost]

I'm an oddball here, I format mine to ext3.

[jussi]

Any suggestions for programs that automatically backs up the internals? I thought microsoft has a free one. Does anyone remember what the name is?

Or should I just use the one built into XP.

[RayintheUK]

I'm using an application called SyncToy, on Vista Ultimate. It's available from Microsoft for XP also and it's free.

My system is set up as a mirror RAID, but all my data is filed under one directory, with as many sub-directories as I need.

I simply run SyncToy as a "sync" between this directory (folder) and one on an external drive, then once it's copied the data, I switch its function to "echo," so that it only searches for changes between the folders.

It takes a few seconds to update the folder, which I do periodically. HTH

Ray.

[gsmittle]

I'm an oddball here, I format mine to ext3.

My NAS is formatted as ext3, but my local drives are all OSX Extended. No PCs in my house...

g.

[jussi]

I'm using an application called SyncToy, on Vista Ultimate. It's available from Microsoft for XP also and it's free.

My system is set up as a mirror RAID, but all my data is filed under one directory, with as many sub-directories as I need.

I simply run SyncToy as a "sync" between this directory (folder) and one on an external drive, then once it's copied the data, I switch its function to "echo," so that it only searches for changes between the folders.

It takes a few seconds to update the folder, which I do periodically. HTH

Ray.

Thanks Ray. That's the program I was talking about. Spent half an hour trying to figure out the name on google yesterday but couldn't find it.

[LinuxRandal]

No PCs in my house...

g.

What do your drives hook to? A router, or are they wireless, hard drives only (no "pc" internals).

Can you guess I have a pet peeve about the false "I'm a pc, and I'm a Mac" ads.

Windows, Linux, Mac OS, BeOS, etc, ALL run on pc's.