NTFS automatically repairs files/folders in the case of power failures or errors.
In addition, they also differ in fault tolerance, security, compression, etc. The above are 3 main differences between NTFS and FAT32. To write to an NTFS partition on Mac will need the help of the third party software. But it is read-only with Mac, some Linux distributions. NTFS is fully read and write compatible with Windows from Windows NT 3.1 and Windows XP up to and including Windows 10.
And larger NTFS volumes require a 64-bit OS and compatible hardware.įAT32 file system offers better read and writing compatibility with more operating systems, like DOS, most Windows (up to and including Windows 8), Mac OS X, and many flavors of UNIX-descended operating system such as Linux and FreeBSD. It can support volumes as large as 256TB, and its file size support tops out at 16 EiB. In this aspect, NTFS has obvious advantages. Namely, you are not allowed to store a single file that is larger than 4GB on FAT32 partition, and you can format 2TB hard drive to FAT32 at most. non-flash, etc) and file fragmentation (on spinning drives).įAT32 only supports files of up to 4GB in size and volumes of up to 2TB in size. This is completely correct sometimes since the data transfer speed is also limited to many other factors including drive technology (HDD vs. Generally speaking, the slowest link (usually the hard drive interface to the PC like SATA) plays a role in the file transfer speed and maximum throughput, but the NTFS file system has been tested to be faster than FAT32 on most benchmarks. FAT32: what’s the difference?Īfter getting a basic understanding of NTFS and FAT32, now you can look into their difference in speed, file size limit, compatibility, etc. It is introduced as a replacement for the FAT file system it is more robust and effective because it makes use of advanced data structure to improve reliability, disk space utilization and overall performance. Starting with Windows NT 3.1, it is the default file system of the Windows NT family. NTFS (New Technology File System) is a proprietary journaling file system developed by Microsoft in 1993. It works as a content table for the OS and indicates where the directories and files are stored on the disk. It uses the File Allocation Table to describe the allocation stats of the clusters in a file system and the link relationship between each. It is the older of the two file systems, so it is not as efficient or advanced as NTFS. FAT32 to clear your doubts.įAT32 is the most common version of the FAT (File Allocation Table) file system, created by Microsoft in 1977. You might wonder what they mean, what they do respectively, which format you should choose? Here we break down the differences between NTFS vs. The given format options are always NTFS and FAT32. When you have a new hard drive, or reinstall the Windows operating system, you will be prompted to format the hard drive.
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