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Hard drive formats

swek
By swek
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I know that NTFS is Windows only, exFAT and FAT32 are compatible with both OSes but FAT32 has a 4GB size limit. But I know these cant be the only differences. What are some of the pros and cons of each formats.

Side note: Linus needs to do AFAP video for this

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I know that NTFS is Windows only, exFAT and FAT32 are compatible with both OSes but FAT32 has a 4GB size limit. But I know these cant be the only differences. What are some of the pros and cons of each formats.

Side note: Linus needs to do AFAP video for this

Asides from some minor differences in speed and access, the FAT formats can't be encrypted. If you're looking for encryption, go for NTFS. Bitlocker is free and decent if you're on Windows 10 Pro.

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I know that NTFS is Windows only, exFAT and FAT32 are compatible with both OSes but FAT32 has a 4GB size limit. But I know these cant be the only differences. What are some of the pros and cons of each formats.

Side note: Linus needs to do AFAP video for this

NTFS has permissions and will fragment slower. Also allows for partitions bigger than 2TB and has journalling, a feature which allows you to unplug power from your PC while it's running without corrupting the file system.

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NTFS is not exclusive to Windows.

I'm pretty sure you can't write on NTFS using a Mac tho

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NTFS has permissions and will fragment slower. Also allows for partitions bigger than 2TB and has journalling, a feature which allows you to unplug power from your PC while it's running without corrupting the file system.

What does fragment mean?

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You can write to NTFS with an OSX machine if you install a NTFS driver, and vice versa for OSX HFS format on Windows.

http://www.paragon-software.com/home/hfs-windows/

http://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac/

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FAT32 is required for most TV reciever boxes that allow you to plug in an external harddrive to record content. You also need to download a program to format a drive in FAT32 on Windows 7 or higher.

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