NTFS vs FAT32 on W/2000

I installed W/2000 and chose NTFS as the file structure. Some of the software I have loaded does not function correctly. I have installed W/2000 on another PC and chose FAT32. On the FAT32 system, I do not get the same errors with the same software.

Is FAT32 a better file system than NTFS for W/2000? Do you have a recommendation of whether to use NTFS or FAT32 when installing NTFS?

 

Yes, maybe, sometimes, it depends.

I know that isn't much of an answer but it pretty much fits. So much of the "which is best" depends on your environment (home, business), your desire/need for security, your hardware, and a few other items.

NTFS is lots more efficient at storage than FAT32 and especially on larger drives. But if most files are large, the efficiency isn't that noticible.

NTFS has a number of security features that FAT32 does not. But if you don't need the security (single user PC on a small home network or a stand-alone) then that isn't much of an advantage.

NTFS will run with more fragmentation than FAT32 before performance is affected. But if you are running a workstation where you can defrag and reboot whenever you want to, then again this won't be much of an advantage.

FAT32 is easier to get to and work with if you have major problems and need to boot from a floppy.

And if you have apps (older stuff I'd bet and very likely games) that will run under FAT32 and will not run under NTFS, then the choices would seem to be replace the apps or run FAT32.

For your situation and if you have enough drive space, I'd suggest making your system partition as FAT32. For one thing, your system files are usually fewer and larger than data files so you won't lose that much space. And you are much less likely to need to fine tune user access to the system partion than to your data files. 4Gb should give you plenty of room to install the OS, any apps you really want to keep running under FAT32, and have enough spare space to easily defrag the drive.

Make the data drive(s)/partition(s) NTFS.

That way you will have the best of both worlds. And if you need to install really large apps (full microsoft office or similar) you can easily install them to the data partition. Also best to place your pagefile on a NTFS data partition.

 

Thank you for your help,

Jim