is fat32 faster than ntfs?

[AndreRIO]

i decided to have fat32 instead of ntfs on my win2k partition, and i noticed that windows run faster with fat32 than ntfs file system, why is that?

[NDC]

Yes, FAT32 slightly faster since the OS doesn't have to check for file permissions such as compression, security, MFT, etc. on FAT32 partitions. Try running "cleanmgr.exe" on a FAT32 partition and then on NTFS. You'll notice that the process is faster on FAT32 since it doesn't need to check file permissions. The disadvantage of FAT32 is that the performance begins to deteriorate as more and more data builds up on the partition. As for NTFS, that isn't the case. FAT is most appropriate on small partitions.
Another advantage NTFS has is if the accessed file is badly fragmented, NTFS requires fewer disk accesses to find the fragments because of its B-tree folder structure. This B-tree structure also makes it faster to access files in large folders on a NTFS volume than on a FAT one. Another advantage of NTFS is that it saves data more efficiently than FAT32 does. NTFS will save the same size data with less file allocation units.

The bottom line is that NTFS or NTFS5 is a more superior file system versus FAT or FAT32. I've found NTFS to be a more stable file system Vs. FAT32. I've rarely come across data errors using NTFS.

All my partitions on Win2k are NTFS5 other than the OS dedicated partition. The reason for this is so that I can access the files for the OS using a standard Windows 98 boot disk. Win98 boot disk cannot access NTFS or NTFS5 partitions...



[This message has been edited by NDC (edited 08-09-2001).]