NTFS, FAT32 and some other things

[SBeaver]

I'm getting a 80gb seagate disk soon and I will be using it for everything, i.e I'm turning my back on raid and getting rid of the old WD *******s.

How should I partition it?
I'm planning on using winxp.
NTFS or fat32?
encryption? is that good or just slow?
Compression?

Should I make a partition just for the swap file or should i wait with that until i have a second drive?
Can I use just one big partition with ntfs or will that degrade performance/loss of space maybe?

Gimme some answears, tell what u think I should do.

 

[Cooler666]

if you are not going to use something like Norton Ghost you might as well use NTFS as its got better security and is faster for large files. Remember you will not be able to see your NTFS partitions in DOS.

 

[zoopa_man]

I don't see where Norton Ghost is going to be a problem. If you have Ghost 6.0 or better You can do ghost images of NTFS drives just like FAT32 drives.

And since your using XP as your operating system it's really designed to run on a NTFS file system. XP will be "happier" when your running the operating system on a NTFS partition. That's not to say you can't take your hard drive and chop it into two partitions and make one NTFS and put your operating system on it and then format the second partition as FAT32. that's what i'm doing at home and works great. Another point about NTFS is that it is a more secure file system then FAT32. Your data will be much safer if it's stored on a NTFS drive.

The only thing that bugs me about NTFS is DOS will not recognize the NTFS partitions. It can sometimes be annoying, But who likes DOS anyways You should be just fine using NTFS as your file system.

 

[h0mersimps0n]

same question

I was asking that same question about 2 weeks ago and after extensive research I found out that the bigger the drive the more preferable NTFS is. Security, stability and the partition table are all designed to prevent data loss. What this translates into (as I later found) is that if you have a system crash there's no more scan-disking on reboot with lost clusters, sys files, prog files, etc because NTFS keeps a running log on all files and can return to just before crash state = never have lost clusters...

This was a huge issue for me because as I was getting my new system stable I lost some clusters that happen to make up critical winxp sys files and I had to reinstall... so NTFS it is and its great!!! I still use FAT32 on my storage drives so if anything happens to the OS I can always get to those files. ALSO, there are a few programs around the web that you can download and use in DOS to get DOS to see NTFS, I've used them, they work.. so don't let that be a factor...

good luck

 

[SBeaver]

Hmm. That all sounds really great with the NTFS but the reason I'm asking is that have had a VERY bad experience with NTFS.
On my current rig which I'm just about to replace (kt7a-raid) I had a lot of problems with NTFS.
If I overclocked too much, sometime I would get corrpted system hive and sometimes some other files.
This is a really big problem if your using NTFS since if (in this DID happen at one point) your partition table (dunno if possible but...) OR your raid driver gets corrupted your lost!
I lost my 80gb ntfs partition and aprox. 40gb of IMPORTANT files (the most important i had on a cd so those survived) were eliminated.
My hpt driver was corrupted so there was nothing I could do.
The DOS thing is also a problem.
I actually love DOS and I have a lot of DOS games and apps that I like to use on occation.
Good thing I have another rig that can handle this I hope so maybe it's not a problem.

BTW, is it worth the trouble to make an extra partition for your games and storage? or should I be satisfied with one phat mutha?

 

[zoopa_man]

Yes it's verry worth the extra time to do two partitions....that way if your OS crashes and you goof it up you will still have your data saved on the other partition. You can then just reinstall your OS on the one partition and not worry about formating away any of your data because it's on another partition hehe

 

[trdsw20]

Do you run a network at home that requires secuirity? If you do then I would consider using NTFS if not then its a little more hassle then its worth. If you ever have problems you cant fix them with a 98 OS installed HD or in DOS.
Besides you can always convert FAT into NTFS but I dont think you can reverse it (NTFS=>FAT not so sure on that but on NT Im sure)

You should definitely make more then one partition. I usually cut aside about 3gigs for the OS install alone. Then for the data I move around like music and stuff I cut 6Gigs.

This way when you boot the comp doesnt have to search the wholedrive for files. Your defragging should also go faster because your not defragging 80 Gigs all at one. If you have a hard system crash you generally can rescue the files.

 

[SBeaver]

Hi again, and thanks for the advices.

NTFS can be converted to fat but it's tricky and you will probably have to reinstall the OS on that drive.
But as long as you only have data on it i THINK you should be allright.
I think I will go for NTFS after all, and split it to as many partitions as I feel is required.
Still havn't heard what you say about having a swap partition!(?)
Is that only good on Linux systems?

 

[AarontheJC]

The thing I like most about XP and NTFS is the speed. At LANs, when we have to throw that 2GB directory onto a newbie's drive so that he has all the mods and maps and stuff, it goes noticeably faster when he's using NTFS and WinXP. I'd definately go NTFS unless you plan on swapping the HDD into an older system periodically.