what type of HD is faster?

[C0NF0RTY]

i mean type like NTFS,FAT32,linux-SWAP...

logically it is same speed whenever type is... but somewhere i've read (i really don't remember where) that FAT32 is faster than NTFS.. is that true? if it is how come?

[AlienDyne]

What Operating System are you going to use?
Windows98? Windows2000? Linux?
The File System used, depends on the Operating System.

WinNT, Win2000, WinXP --> NTFS or FAT32
Win95 OSR-2, Win98, WinME --> FAT32
Win3.xx, Win95a, DOS --> FAT16
Linux --> Linux

[C0NF0RTY]

let's say winNT
NTSF or FAT32?

[Cobra]

In my experience, the difference in speed is neglible at best. I'm talking a difference of nanoseconds. Still, in this order - FAT16, FAT32, NTFS. The FATs are slightly faster than NTFS because NTFS has its security features to keep track of for every file, as well as more detailed date/time stamping. In a Win2K/WinXP environment, I'd still choose NTFS over FAT32. Like I said, the speed difference is barely noticable, especially on a higher end machine, and it's far more secure, and - to me at least - stable.

Not gonna even get into the Linux file systems, as that's like comparing apples to oranges.

[AlienDyne]

I agree with Cobra on that.
I would choose NTFS too.

[C0NF0RTY]

yeah i know NTFS is more secure than FAT32... but i'm not runing IIS server on my comp (i hope you know for unicode)
from what i need to be secure of when i'm not runing any server on my mashine and i have cool fire-wall ?!?!?!?

[ephmynus]

[quote]Originally posted by C0NF0RTY:
<strong>yeah i know NTFS is more secure than FAT32... but i'm not runing IIS server on my comp (i hope you know for unicode)
from what i need to be secure of when i'm not runing any server on my mashine and i have cool fire-wall ?!?!?!?</strong><hr></blockquote>

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA... ...HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Talk about an OxyMoron

Secure IIS... I repeat...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA... ...HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[C0NF0RTY]

[quote]Originally posted by Aplustech:
<strong>
Secure IIS... I repeat...
</strong><hr></blockquote>

i don't see the point to your ironic laugh?!?!?

[Antimatter]

FAT16 is definately quickest. I've been trying FAT16 with my Win98se boot partition recently and found startup times improved by several seconds.

Something to note is the indexing properties of NTFS that allows for much quicker file searching.

[C0NF0RTY]

so you are trying to say FAT16 is faster than FAT32?


p.s. don't forgat FAT32 clusters are 4 or 16kb and NTFS is 1kb

[confus-ed]

Fat 32 is fastest. Faster than fat 16 and NTFS, wasteful & unsecure but faster (By a fair margin, why do you think they left it in xp?).

Just to confuse you even more there are other versions of FAT too which use bigger (and smaller!) sector sizes, bigger number=faster but more wasted space.

If 9x didn't spray files all over the place and if defrag was any good at all then you'd have a straight choice between permission based and open access, NTFS has its own merits in the right environment but if its just you and dial up in the world (and you have a "cool" firewall) then for a personal system NTFS is just a headache because you've got to manage all those inherited rights. Just go have a read in the xp forum for all those struggling to come to terms with a permission based system.

Another positive advantage especially with xp is the ability to "mess" with system files, overwriting mis-matched versions, correcting errant installs etc, you can't do any of that with NTFS 'cos you've not got the right permissions so you can't log on and get them so any changes you might make will be ignored by ntfs. There's only so much you can do from console!!!!!

[Platypus]

[quote]Originally posted by C0NF0RTY:
<strong>so you are trying to say FAT16 is faster than FAT32?


p.s. don't forgat FAT32 clusters are 4 or 16kb and NTFS is 1kb</strong><hr></blockquote>

You are likely to find FAT16 faster, as for any given file there are much fewer FAT entries to deal with, e.g. for a 2G partition, max size for standard FAT16, FAT32 has 8x the number of FAT entries to read or write for each file. The difference will only be small and is outweighed in most people's estimation by the wase of space under FAT16. This is especially noticeable with Win9x which uses lots of small files.

For similar reasons (less "overheads") FAT32 often comes up a bit faster than NTFS.