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Going for NTFS or ExFAT File System? (Computer Related)

posted
Total Posts
7

Go for NTFS or ExFAT?

NTFS
5
83.33%
ExFAT
1
16.67%
Total votes: 6
Topic Starter
XYZeoul
I'm planning to buy an external hard drive and I have a massive sized individual files like around 12GB each file. I did a research on which one is better but I still can't tell the differences.
The Hard Drive I planned to buy has around 1TB/2TB capacity but it isn't allowed to use NTFS but it supports ExFAT file system. Please help by telling what do you know about NTFS and ExFAT and tell me which one should I get?
Dolgath
The lack of ntfs specified shouldn't matter as with any drive that size you should be able to create a new partition in ntfs from disk management in the control panel. In fact I'm pretty sure if you are running a windows pc you have to use ntfs on drives that large as fat is incapable of running a volume of that size. If you are using a mac than I have no clue, but if you are using windows basically just always use ntfs.
Flanster

Dolgath wrote:

The lack of ntfs specified shouldn't matter as with any drive that size you should be able to create a new partition in ntfs from disk management in the control panel. In fact I'm pretty sure if you are running a windows pc you have to use ntfs on drives that large as fat is incapable of running a volume of that size. If you are using a mac than I have no clue, but if you are using windows basically just always use ntfs.


What you are thinking of is FAT32. They're talking about ExFAT which has a significantly larger filesize and volume limit.

The only compromise to running this filesystem is less performance in comparison to NTFS. But as Dolgath said, any drive out of the box should be able to be formatted with NTFS.
Topic Starter
XYZeoul

Flanster wrote:

Dolgath wrote:

The lack of ntfs specified shouldn't matter as with any drive that size you should be able to create a new partition in ntfs from disk management in the control panel. In fact I'm pretty sure if you are running a windows pc you have to use ntfs on drives that large as fat is incapable of running a volume of that size. If you are using a mac than I have no clue, but if you are using windows basically just always use ntfs.


What you are thinking of is FAT32. They're talking about ExFAT which has a significantly larger filesize and volume limit.

The only compromise to running this filesystem is less performance in comparison to NTFS. But as Dolgath said, any drive out of the box should be able to be formatted with NTFS.


I saw on the internet that ExFAT has significantly larger filesize and volume limit. Same thing as you said. Someone said that it has larger than 4GB filesize limit but the thing is.. how large is the limit?

Here's a copy of the text "High capacity SDXC memory cards are now pre-formatted with the exFAT, as it is lightweight in contrast to NTFS and supports file size more of than 4 GB." and here's the link to the website.

Actually, I read so many websites that it makes more confusing.
Dolgath

XYZeoul wrote:

Flanster wrote:

Dolgath wrote:

The lack of ntfs specified shouldn't matter as with any drive that size you should be able to create a new partition in ntfs from disk management in the control panel. In fact I'm pretty sure if you are running a windows pc you have to use ntfs on drives that large as fat is incapable of running a volume of that size. If you are using a mac than I have no clue, but if you are using windows basically just always use ntfs.


What you are thinking of is FAT32. They're talking about ExFAT which has a significantly larger filesize and volume limit.

The only compromise to running this filesystem is less performance in comparison to NTFS. But as Dolgath said, any drive out of the box should be able to be formatted with NTFS.


I saw on the internet that ExFAT has significantly larger filesize and volume limit. Same thing as you said. Someone said that it has larger than 4GB filesize limit but the thing is.. how large is the limit?

Here's a copy of the text "High capacity SDXC memory cards are now pre-formatted with the exFAT, as it is lightweight in contrast to NTFS and supports file size more of than 4 GB." and here's the link to the website.

Actually, I read so many websites that it makes more confusing.


My bad it's been awhile since I looked into this so I just assumed ExFat wasn't that far above Fat32. Anyway after reading the article Exfat should cover your needs as it can handle the same size files as NTFS. At the bottom of the article it says ExFat "Behaves as a fusion between FAT32 and NTFS by providing practically unlimited file size and partition size.".

And I'm not that much of a hardware guy so I can't say how important the following features of ntfs has. The article said these features were unique to ntfs as Exfat lacks features which makes it lightweight in comparison "Other notable features include reparse points, sparse file support, disk usage quotas, distributed link tracking, and file-level encryption. The NTFS file system supports backward compatibility with the previous versions.

It’s a journaling file system which proves to be an important aspect when it comes to reviving a corrupt file system. It maintains a Journal, a data structure which keeps track of any potential modifications to the file system and is used to recover the file system.".

But if all your caring about is storing data than either will suit your needs.
Flanster

XYZeoul wrote:

but the thing is.. how large is the limit?


Maximum file size is 16 Exabytes (16 billion GB), so you don't have to worry about large files.
http://www.ntfs.com/exfat-comparison.htm
abraker
You shouldnt be hitting the Exabyte limit for another 50 years or so (assuming harddrive capacity increases x1000 every 20 years)
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