Re: Change file system on new HD?

Dave Royal wrote:
Paul J Gans wrote:
Dave Royal <dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
...I was surprised to find that the disk was FAT32, and the first thing XP did was reformat it to NTFS. Odd.

Not really. Disk areas are assigned by "cluster". The driver
a file cluster by cluster. On average the last cluster is only
half filled.

In FAT32 for various reasons, mostly addressibility, as the disk
size grows, the cluster size grows. So on large disks (bigger
than a few dozen gigabytes) the cluster size is enormous. Thus
there is a HUGE amount of wasted space.

What I meant was: why wasn't the drive preformatted to NTFS - which is what I was expecting?

Maybe because FAT32 is read/writeable by most OS's whereas NTFS is not?
.

Relevant Pages

  • RE: Incorrect Disk Space reading
    ... How to Locate and Correct Disk Space Problems on NTFS Volumes in Windows XP ... cannot find the cause or locate the folders and files that cause the NTFS ... The Cluster Size Is Too Large ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware)
  • Re: Explorer Eating Memory When Viewing VERY Large Folders
    ... I meant on the disk. ... add up to quite a bit of wasted space, especially with the larger cluster ... In a virtual memory system like Windows XP, the ideal size of disk clusters ... An NTFS partition of almost any size you are likely to meet will use this, ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain)
  • Re: Partition Magic Incompatibility??
    ... manual repair etc. are still abysmal for NTFS. ... FATxx, rather than anything inherent in the file systems. ... MS'a approach to file system maintenance seems to assume that the ... - a directory entry that points to the cluster chain ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • Re: 2 shortcut questions
    ... MS-MVP Windows Shell/User ... >> Size on disk: 4.00 KB ... >> If the cluster size for NTFS is 4KB, then 4KB will be the smallest space ... 4KB is the default cluster size for NTFS. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.customize)
  • Re: FAT32 v.s NTFS
    ... Size Limitations in NTFS and FAT File Systems ... Table 13.4 Default Cluster Sizes for Volumes with Windows XP Professional ... Volume Size FAT16 Cluster Size FAT32 Cluster Size NTFS Cluster Size ...
    (microsoft.public.win2000.file_system)