exFAT or NTFS?

[I am an SSD]

I am not really sure which of the mentioned formats I have to choose. If anyone can provide a little info to help me decide, that would be great. A link to a good website will do as well.

[Hydraxiler32]

you asked for sites so heres some random ones i found

http://www.howtogeek.com/235596/whats-the-difference-between-fat32-exfat-and-ntfs/

http://www.flexense.com/fat32_exfat_ntfs_usb3_performance_comparison.html

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2309043

 

[I am an SSD]

Just now, MpB907 said:

According to benchmarks, (Source: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-file-system-ntfs,3166.html) exFAT and NTFS are so similar in performance, it doesn't really matter what you choose.

I myself would go with NTFS because of security and stability.

What is the allocation size unit? When formatting a drive, it asks me to select one. The default is 256kb when exfat is chosen.

[Shahnewaz]

Is this for an external drive?

[I am an SSD]

Just now, Shahnewaz said:

Is this for an external drive?

Yes

[I am an SSD]

8 minutes ago, MpB907 said:

According to benchmarks, (Source: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-file-system-ntfs,3166.html) exFAT and NTFS are so similar in performance, it doesn't really matter what you choose.

I myself would go with NTFS though, because of security and stability features.

What stability and security features will be relevant? I use my drive very sparsely these days, but may use it as extra space to install games which I regularly dont play, movies im done with etc. I assume by security features you mean it is easier to recover data from it incase the contents are deleted by mistake?

[Shahnewaz]

If you have any probability of using your external drive on a Mac, then use exFAT. Otherwise, go with NTFS.

[I am an SSD]

7 hours ago, MpB907 said:

Nope, then it doesn't really matter, but as @Shahnewaz said, if you're gonna use the drive on a Mac, use ExFAT.

 

EDIT: As for allocation size, you can find the default (and recommended - by microsoft) here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/140365

thanks for the link, I had already formatted it to exFAT with 256kb of allocation size, while the recommended  is 128kb, but i dont think it will make much of a difference

There was a post somewhere which said that allocation size merely meant amount of space allocated for each portion of data will be 1/2 the size of the allocation size, which i didnt really understand but again, not that important I suppose.

[EmeraldFlame]

14 hours ago, I am an SSD said:

thanks for the link, I had already formatted it to exFAT with 256kb of allocation size, while the recommended  is 128kb, but i dont think it will make much of a difference

There was a post somewhere which said that allocation size merely meant amount of space allocated for each portion of data will be 1/2 the size of the allocation size, which i didnt really understand but again, not that important I suppose.

Allocation size is the smallest amount of space that data can take up on your hard drive. So for your example of a 256KB allocation size. Your computer basically divides your HDD into a bunch of 256KB blocks, and gives them numbers. These numbers are also essentially what your MBR/GPT will reference when it goes to look for a file. Now say you go to put your very first file on this drive, and it's an 8KB file. The HDD will put that into block 1, which means there is another 248KB of free space left in that block (256-8). However, the hard drive can't use the rest of that 248KB of space because it would have no way to reference it if it did. This means your file that is 8KB digitally is effectively taking up 256KB worth of space on your HDD physically. When you go to put a second file on the HDD, it will go into block 2 which starts on the 257th KB on the disk, not the 9th KB right after the first file.

Generally speaking, a higher allocation size will decrease seek times, giving slightly better performance, because the HDD doesn't have as many records to search through but at the same time, it wastes a little more space.

In practice though, you honestly are very unlikely to see much of difference at all. It's possible to, especially within benchmarks, but very unlikely in everyday use for the typical home user. 

[theanimun]

Do note, that exFAT is directly supported in windows 10 and can be used at bigger capacities than what NTFS can support, as well as the fact NTFS is slowly becoming obsolete (exFAT supersedes NTFS)

 

Also, exFAT was designed for flash media, so for an SSD, which is a type of flash media, go for exFAT.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExFAT

 

[AstroBenny]

53 minutes ago, EmeraldFlame said:

Allocation size is the smallest amount of space that data can take up on your hard drive. So for your example of a 256KB allocation size. Your computer basically divides your HDD into a bunch of 256KB blocks, and gives them numbers. These numbers are also essentially what your MBR/GPT will reference when it goes to look for a file. Now say you go to put your very first file on this drive, and it's an 8KB file. The HDD will put that into block 1, which means there is another 248KB of free space left in that block (256-8). However, the hard drive can't use the rest of that 248KB of space because it would have no way to reference it if it did. This means your file that is 8KB digitally is effectively taking up 256KB worth of space on your HDD physically. When you go to put a second file on the HDD, it will go into block 2 which starts on the 257th KB on the disk, not the 9th KB right after the first file.

Generally speaking, a higher allocation size will decrease seek times, giving slightly better performance, because the HDD doesn't have as many records to search through but at the same time, it wastes a little more space.

In practice though, you honestly are very unlikely to see much of difference at all. It's possible to, especially within benchmarks, but very unlikely in everyday use for the typical home user. 

I just wanted to say that this is a very informative, clear and easy to understand post. so Thank you.

[I am an SSD]

10 hours ago, EmeraldFlame said:

Allocation size is the smallest amount of space that data can take up on your hard drive. So for your example of a 256KB allocation size. Your computer basically divides your HDD into a bunch of 256KB blocks, and gives them numbers. These numbers are also essentially what your MBR/GPT will reference when it goes to look for a file. Now say you go to put your very first file on this drive, and it's an 8KB file. The HDD will put that into block 1, which means there is another 248KB of free space left in that block (256-8). However, the hard drive can't use the rest of that 248KB of space because it would have no way to reference it if it did. This means your file that is 8KB digitally is effectively taking up 256KB worth of space on your HDD physically. When you go to put a second file on the HDD, it will go into block 2 which starts on the 257th KB on the disk, not the 9th KB right after the first file.

Generally speaking, a higher allocation size will decrease seek times, giving slightly better performance, because the HDD doesn't have as many records to search through but at the same time, it wastes a little more space.

In practice though, you honestly are very unlikely to see much of difference at all. It's possible to, especially within benchmarks, but very unlikely in everyday use for the typical home user. 

Thats a great explanation...thanks