fat32 to ntfs conversion performance penalty?

[frdchang]

hello,

is there a performance penalty when the fat32 filesystem is converted to ntfs? (at the begining of a clean install of the recovery cds)

why doesn't the recovery cd's just format everything as ntfs in the beginning...

cheers,
fred

[dd]

looks like it depends on the size of your hard disk:


"FAT32 is faster in cases where the partitions are less than 18GB. NTFS is faster with anything larger.

Fat32 only has share level permissions, whereas NTFS has file level permissions. The latter is more secure.

Both file systems fragment equally for the most part, although NTFS is more resistant. However, you'll still need to defrag regularly.

NTFS is only readable by WinXP/2000/NT, and FAT32 by WinXP/2000/98/95OSR2. Keep this in mind if you plan on dual booting.

It's easy to switch a system drive to NTFS if WinXP/2k/NT is already installed, but it's a one way ticket. Other drives can be reconverted if you change your mind, but you'll have to reformat them."

This was found via google. Heres the link:
http://forums.devhardware.com/t2400/s.html

[monty cantsin]

hello,

is there a performance penalty when the fat32 filesystem is converted to ntfs? (at the begining of a clean install of the recovery cds)

why doesn't the recovery cd's just format everything as ntfs in the beginning...

cheers,
fred

Actually NTFS is a bit slower than FAT32, that's true, but as I understand your question, you're asking whether the conversion process itself causes performance penalties, i.e., you're asking if there is any difference between drives that were set up with NTFS from scratch compared to those that have been converted from FAT32 to NTFS later. No, there is no difference, performance will not suffer.

[ashleys]

why doesn't the recovery cd's just format everything as ntfs in the beginning...

The recovery I ran on my T30 (and I assume it's the same for other TPs') uses Windows 98 to actually restore the data. During a couple of the re-boots it shows up in the boot loader list. Therefore, they can only format C: in FAT prior to reloading the data. Also, if users wish to stick with FAT they can.

My only gripe is when you convert a FAT partition to NTFS the NTFS blocksize has to be 512. Personally, I'd like it to be 4K.

Only other thing to remember is wait until you've applied all the latest service before running convert. It's likely that the recovery CD will not have the latest service pack which may have fixes to convert.exe or ntfs.sys (amongst others) that might be critical.