FAT or NTFS?

What do you use, NTFS or FAT? And why did you chose what you use?

[Uranium-235]

If you're running Windows2000 or another NTFS capable OS, NTFS.

out of all the Windows FS's it's the best.

Dosen't need to be defragmented, supports encryption, compression, dynamic voluming, and a whole lot of other stuff.

unless you're dual-booting with a non-NTFS capable OS (such as Win9x).

If security is a concern, NTFS is the way to go. Otherwise, stick with Fat32.

[Jason425]

ppsssst.. cikotic, you didn't say why! anyway, i use ntfs.. why? because it's the cool thing to do!

[Aemon_]

i've always been told that NTFS is faster, i have nothing to back that up though. although when i first started working here, they gave me machine with a Celeron 400mhz running Win98 (fat32) - slow as christmas. then i formatted and loaded Win2K with NTFS - actually runs faster. but Win2K is stinking good in my opinion. i like it.
my $.02

later

pssst, jason, I did say why.... security. :P

I've used both exclusivly and used both at the same time. In fact, I'm using both at this very moment. Do "I" see a difference between them? Nope, not at all. But then again, I haven't benchmarked the two so I can't say one is faster than the other.

All I'm saying is that if you want to set specific security levels, NTFS will allow you to do that whereas FAT32 does not. To me, that's the only real significant benifit NTFS has over FAT32 for a home system. If your running a file or application server, security then becomes an issue so therefore NTFS is ideal for it. Well... maybe not "ideal" but you get the jist of what I'm saying.

In Aemon's case, switching from a 16 bit OS to a 32 bit OS would most likely have been the reason for his noticable speed increase. Not the switch from FAT32 to NTFS. (not trying to prove you wrong Aemon, just pointing out that compairing Win 98 to Win 2K is like compairing apples to oranges)

If your really worried about which to use, try them both and do some benchmarking. Then decide which is best suited for your system and your likes.

EDIT: After giving this more serious thought... I guess I really didn't give an adaquate answer to why. In a nutshell, if you don't know anything about NTFS security and you start messing with it, you can really screw things up very quickly. Locking yourself out of your own OS can really be a pain in the *ss. Just loading it and running it you shouldn't have any problems, but don't mess with the security, access levels, permissions, etc... unless you know what your doing.

no idea on the specifics but i use NTFS because it's XPs default, it's newer, and i guess MS probably will stop supporting FAT soon

[Aemon_]

(not trying to prove you wrong Aemon, just pointing out that compairing Win 98 to Win 2K is like compairing apples to oranges)

thats ok. i was just giving my observations

later

[vee_ess]

NTFS... When I have run the two side-by-side on the very same system (I dual booted two different Win2k accounts), the NTFS seemed much faster when loading things, but not much faster when saving. It is, as CiKoTiC has said, far more secure. It is also more reliable.

Soon enough, on the other hand, we won't really be caring much about these file systems. As Microsoft's Anvil is released later this year (for 64-bit computing), so will their new file system. It will be tremendously faster, more reliable and secure than the current two.

didnt know NTFS didnt have to be defragmented...well thats interesting and im glad to hear that.

i'd suggest checking out http://www.whatis.com for any defintions of computer terms your unfamiliar about. this site is amazingly helpful