NFTS or FAT32?

Dazd · Post by **Dazd** » Mon Nov 08, 2004 7:52 am

Which is the better file system for running audio applications in regards to low CPU usage?

Thanks.

AdamJay · Post by **AdamJay** » Mon Nov 08, 2004 7:59 am

read this:
http://www.anandtech.com/guides/viewfaq.html?i=63

and note that one advantage NTFS has over Fat32 is that "multiple data streams are supported and accessible with NTFS."

AdamJay · Post by **AdamJay** » Mon Nov 08, 2004 7:59 am

and FYI, if you google "fat32 vs. ntfs" that anandtech page is the first result.

forge · Post by **forge** » Mon Nov 08, 2004 12:35 pm

"NTFS....Support for large hard disks, with a theoretical limit of 16 ExaBytes, and up to 2 TeraBytes (TB)."

ExaByte? First time I've heard of it - is that the next one from terrabyte?

My dad used to proudly state that when he went back to college and did Info Systems in the late 80s they told him about Gigabytes and how he probably wouldn't see them in his life time!

Martyn · Post by **Martyn** » Mon Nov 08, 2004 8:12 pm

I've heard that it's better to keep audio drives NTFS, mine are all FAT32 because it used to be believed that this was better for audio throughput. I've been meaning to convert my drives to NTFS but as I have 200gbs of drives, archiving it all is going to be a nightmare.
I'm interested to hear if anyone has converted their drives from FAT32 to NTFS with the files still on them, I've been led to believe that it possible to do this but so far havn't had the bollocks to try, for obvious reasons.

Has anybody done this or heard of anyone doing it? Sounds a bit risky to me. I think i'll archive my audio to DVD first.

AdamJay · Post by **AdamJay** » Mon Nov 08, 2004 8:23 pm

forge wrote:"NTFS....Support for large hard disks, with a theoretical limit of 16 ExaBytes, and up to 2 TeraBytes (TB)."

ExaByte? First time I've heard of it - is that the next one from terrabyte?

My dad used to proudly state that when he went back to college and did Info Systems in the late 80s they told him about Gigabytes and how he probably wouldn't see them in his life time!

ExaBytes are more logical and exact units of measure.
Basically, its One Million Million Bytes. Since units of measure like Gigabyte and Megabyte are referring to kilobytes and not bytes themselves, where the actual definitions of Kilobytes are usually not concrete (i.e. kB = 1,000 bytes but KB = 1,024 bytes..), think kilo as in kilometeres = 1,000 meters, Exabytes refers to the 1,000 not the 1,024.

Furthermore,

1 Petabyte = 1000 Terabytes, 1 Exabyte = 1000 Petabytes, 1 Zettabyte = 1000 Exabytes. So Exabyte is 2 up from Terabyte.

DUH!!!!

drush · Post by **drush** » Mon Nov 08, 2004 8:46 pm

Martyn wrote:I've heard that it's better to keep audio drives NTFS, mine are all FAT32 because it used to be believed that this was better for audio throughput. I've been meaning to convert my drives to NTFS but as I have 200gbs of drives, archiving it all is going to be a nightmare.
I'm interested to hear if anyone has converted their drives from FAT32 to NTFS with the files still on them, I've been led to believe that it possible to do this but so far havn't had the bollocks to try, for obvious reasons.

Has anybody done this or heard of anyone doing it? Sounds a bit risky to me. I think i'll archive my audio to DVD first.

i've read that you can do it... alongside 10 or 20 warnings about backing up your data first.

cope · Post by **cope** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 10:08 am

NTFS supports files larger than 4GB - FAT32 doesn't.

You can convert a FAT32 volume to NTFS by running the command line utility "convert" - CHECK YOUR DISK FOR ERRORS FIRST:

prompt> convert c: /FS:NTFS

this will convert your c: drive's filesystem to NTFS.

sqook · Post by **sqook** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 2:09 pm

You should only really be using FAT32 if you're worried about legacy applications, or communication with other OS's in a dual-booting situation.

NTFS offers several advantages over FAT32, such as journaling, large file/disk support, and plenty of other crap that has already been mentioned in this thread.

Oh yeah, and when you format the drive, make sure to check for bad blocks. =)

phill · Post by **phill** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 5:56 pm

AdamJay wrote:read this:
http://www.anandtech.com/guides/viewfaq.html?i=63

and note that one advantage NTFS has over Fat32 is that "multiple data streams are supported and accessible with NTFS."

What that means to us players is that you can get the Audio data in one stream and the file meta data in another. Applications like Live or Traktor don't have the capability to move the data in multiple streams. Its not just a matter of having the capability in the file system, the requesting app has to support it as well.

Phil

atomic · Post by **atomic** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 11:06 pm

I have done this with no problem. I am using FAT32 at the moment due to the use of linux but I am thinking that I may switch back. But yes it is a stressfull 20 min or so process.

peace

Martyn wrote:I've heard that it's better to keep audio drives NTFS, mine are all FAT32 because it used to be believed that this was better for audio throughput. I've been meaning to convert my drives to NTFS but as I have 200gbs of drives, archiving it all is going to be a nightmare.
I'm interested to hear if anyone has converted their drives from FAT32 to NTFS with the files still on them, I've been led to believe that it possible to do this but so far havn't had the bollocks to try, for obvious reasons.

Has anybody done this or heard of anyone doing it? Sounds a bit risky to me. I think i'll archive my audio to DVD first.