Partitioning: FAT or NTFS?

I want to set up a new system.

I want to trial something very similar to what I have in my signature, but I'm wondering about partitions.

I'm thinking two partitions for System and Data, both NTFS, but I was hoping for some expert advice - is there anything else I should consider?

 

not sure what you are looking for ?
Is partitioning a good idea ? yes. If possible I run windows and programs on one drive and keep my data on a second drive. I do still have one machine which I partition with C: for OS and Programs and D: for data. All drives are NTFS.
Having small drives or partitions will certainly make for fast imaging and allow you to restore a system image without destroying your data.
what else is there to consider ? I can't think of anything

just tried drive image xml. I know it's free but for me it was also very slow. Have you tried the demo of Shadow Protect ?

 

I was wondering if ayone further seperated system and applications? Or possible System and applications from Application Profiles.

I was also wondering whether FAT32 was a better option...

I haven't tried Shadow Protect, but I'm trying to maintain a zero-cost solution. Does the demo expire?

 

My view

Best to have OS and programs on one partition/drive and data on another. Not a good idea to have separate program partition.

Using Returnil - need to move firefox profile to data drive, Plus my docs and other small files if they change a lot.

I'm told that NTFS is better - more secure/stable ?

Yes demo expires. Sorry it does cost but the speed and reliability makes it good value.

 

FAT32 has better backwards compatibility.
FAT32 is slightly faster on small single partition drives (10gb or less approx).

NTFS
Far more recoverable (Journalling ensures file system integrity, transaction rollback)
Excellent access security
File encryption (but know to be quiet easy to get past).
Sparse files (very quick and efficient method of allocating file space)
Mount points
Fault tolerance (eg automatically handle failling clusters)
NTFS has efficient indexing which makes reading directory s faster and has a lower memory impact.
Far more fragmentation resistant than FAT32
More efficient/faster at reading/writing data under heavy loads (because it can better organise multiple requests to write data).
On a drive with multiple partitions and trying to read or write data to more than one partition at a time, NTFS is always faster than FAT32 (NTFS is able or organise the reads/writes better across multiple partitions).

FAT32
Space wasted the larger the partition (Limited number of clusters)
VERY susceptible to errors due to lack of journalling (eg caused by unexpected reboot).
Has a 4gb file size limitation.
Does not support unicode (internationalised) file names.

 

Wow. Thanks. Awesome info. Gonna go for NTFS and 2 partitions.

 

I also have 2 NTFS partitions C and D :
1. Internal HDD#1 = System Partition [C:] (C of Cystem)
2. Internal HDD#2 = Data Partition [D:] (D of Data)
3. External HDD#3 = Backup Partition [E:] (E of External or Emergency)

 

Theres still a lot of FAT32 viruses floating around out there so i would personally suggest keeping with NTFS for that reason.

I recently decided to make one of my storage drives formatted to FAT32 and in less then a week's time it was mangled to bits. That convinced me right there and then not to chance formatting again to FAT32 because it was PITA to waste all that good time redoing things over again, BUT, i suppose an image would have made things right again, but for how long?