What advantage does NTFS offer over FAT32?

Answer 1

Fat32 is a type of Fat file system.

Fat file system has 3 types

1) Fat12 2)Fat16 3)Fat32

The number in the names of file systems represents no. of bits used in the addressing scheme.

more bits means more addresses, so large drives are accessed and addressed through the file system.

Fat12 was used only for very small drives, floppies and tiny hard drives.

Fat16 is used for only upto the drive/partitions up to 2GB.

Fat32 is is used for addressing upto 2TB drives/partitions.

Before Fat32 the when there was Fat16 was available only, that had 16 bits to address, was called as the Fat simpally.

Answer 2

The old FAT (File Allocation Table) file system was developed originally (when the original IBM PCs came out) for MS-DOS on small machines and floppy disks. There are variants - FAT12 is used on all floppy disks, for example - but hard disk partitions in Windows XP can be assumed to use the FAT32 version, or 32-bit File Allocation Table.

Later, a more advanced file system was developed for hard disks in Windows NT, called NTFS (the "NT File System"). This has matured, through several versions, into the latest one that exists alongside FAT in Windows XP.

Answer 3

NTFS stands for new technology file system or network technology file system. In NTSF partition size can be of 2 TB or more. and file size can be 16 TB. file/folder encryption is done. and it supports file name character upto 255.

FAT32 stands for File allocation table. in FAT32 partition size can be Upto 2 TB. and file size can be 4 GB. file/folder encryption is not possible in FAT32. and it supports file name character upto 8.3. Fore more information, you can visit this website:http://www.iyogibusiness.com

Answer 4

FAT16 vs. FAT32 124 out of 168 rated this helpful -

Rate this topic

Table3.9 provides a comparison of FAT16 and FAT32 cluster sizes according to drive size.

Table 3.9 Cluster Sizes of FAT16 and FAT32

Drive Size

Default FAT16 Cluster Size

Default FAT32 Cluster Size

260 MB–511 MB

8 KB

Not supported

512 MB–1,023 MB

16 KB

4 KB

1,024 MB–2 GB

32 KB

4 KB

2 GB–8 GB

Not supported

4 KB

8 GB–16 GB

Not supported

8 KB

16 GB–32 GB

Not supported

16 KB

> 32 GB

Not supported

32 KB

There are additional differences between FAT32 and FAT16:

• FAT32 allows finer allocation granularity (approximately 4 million allocation units per volume).

• FAT32 allows the root directory to grow (FAT16 holds a maximum of 512 entries, and the limit can be even lower due to the use of long file names in the root folder).

Advantages of FAT16

Advantages of FAT16 are:

• MS-DOS, Windows95, Windows98, WindowsNT, Windows2000, and some UNIX operating systems can use it.

• There are many tools available to address problems and recover data.

• If you have a startup failure, you can start the computer with an MS-DOS bootable floppy disk.

• It is efficient, both in speed and storage, on volumes smaller than 256MB.

Disadvantages of FAT16

Disadvantages of FAT16 are:

• The root folder can manage a maximum of 512 entries. The use of long file names can significantly reduce the number of available entries.

• FAT16 is limited to 65,536 clusters, but because certain clusters are reserved, it has a practical limit of 65,524. Each cluster is fixed in size relative to the logical drive. If both the maximum number of clusters and their maximum size (32KB) are reached, the largest drive is limited to 4GB on Windows2000. To maintain compatibility with MS-DOS, Windows95, and Windows98, a FAT16 volume should not be larger than 2GB.

• The boot sector is not backed up.

• There is no built-in file system security or file compression with FAT16.

• FAT16 can waste file storage space in larger drives as the size of the cluster increases. The space allocated for storing a file is based on the size of the cluster allocation granularity, not the file size. A 10-KB file stored in a 32-KB cluster wastes 22KB of disk space.

Top Of Page
Advantages of FAT32

FAT32 allocates disk space much more efficiently than previous versions of FAT. Depending on the size of your files, there is a potential for tens and even hundreds of megabytes more free disk space on larger hard disk drives. In addition, FAT32 provides the following enhancements:

• The root folder on a FAT32 drive is now an ordinary cluster chain, so it can be located anywhere on the volume. For this reason, FAT32 does not restrict the number of entries in the root folder.

• It uses space more efficiently than FAT16. FAT32 uses smaller clusters (4KB for drives up to 8GB), resulting in 10 to 15 percent more efficient use of disk space relative to large FAT16 drives. FAT32 also reduces the resources necessary for the computer to operate.

• FAT32 is more robust than FAT16. FAT32 has the ability to relocate the root directory and use the backup copy of the FAT instead of the default copy. In addition, the boot record on FAT32 drives has been expanded to include a backup of critical data structures. This means that FAT32 volumes are less susceptible to a single point of failure than FAT16 volumes.

Disadvantages of FAT32

Disadvantages of FAT32 include:

• The largest FAT32 volume Windows2000 can format is limited in size to 32GB.

• FAT32 volumes are not accessible from any other operating systems other than Windows95 OSR2 and Windows98.

• The boot sector is not backed up.

• There is no built-in file system security or compression with FAT32.

Answer 5

Many, many advantages: larger file and drive sizes, better security, better error recovery, compression, encryption...