Backing up Hard Drive

[didikai]

Are there any problems backing up a 2 TB external hard drive that is formatted to NTFS onto a 2 TB external Hard drive that is formatted to FAT32

[smrpix]

FAT32 has a 4GB file size limit and long filename limit (among other things.) I don't think you can make a 2TB FAT32 partition.

[Hoser Rob]

Actually I've had problems with long file/path names under windows 7 using ntfs formatted discs. Ridiculous, but that's windows. Formatting a 2TB drive to fat32 sounds like the height of foolishness to me. Are you sure that's what it is?

[El Heggunte]

Are there any problems backing up a 2 TB external hard drive that is formatted to NTFS onto a 2 TB external Hard drive that is formatted to FAT32

Yes, there shall be performance issues (if the chosen cluster size is "too small", i.e., between 512 bytes and 4096 bytes) OR an excessive waste of space (if the cluster size is greater than 4096 bytes).

[ranchhand]

Why would you even want FAT32? It's easy to reformat to NTFS.

[jman98]

Why would you even want FAT32? It's easy to reformat to NTFS.

My guess - he's got some kind of playback device that can't handle NTFS and only works with FAT32.

[jman98]

Actually I've had problems with long file/path names under windows 7 using ntfs formatted discs. Ridiculous, but that's windows. Formatting a 2TB drive to fat32 sounds like the height of foolishness to me. Are you sure that's what it is?

This is not an NTFS issue but a Windows issue. Windows has problems when the path name is 256 characters or longer. To be honest with you, better organization and naming can fix this. If 255 characters is insufficient for your needs, perhaps you should rethink how you're doing things.

EVERY operating system has limitations on path names.

[didikai]

Why would you even want FAT32? It's easy to reformat to NTFS.

My guess - he's got some kind of playback device that can't handle NTFS and only works with FAT32.

I have a 2TB desktop Hard drive. I want to buy another to backup the first one. I know new Hard drives come formatted to FAT32. I know I can format the new drive to NTFS. But I will lose the backup software that comes with the new dive. I just wanted to avoid more searching for new backup software. Unless Widows 7 backup will suufice. But I want software that will copy everything across, files, Windows, etc.
Thanks for replies

[Noahtuck]

You can take a full HDD and format it from FAT to NTFS without losing anything.

And if the software comes on the hdd just backup/copy the software to your PC before formatting if you are that worried about losing it.

[nic2k4]

Depends what is meant by backing up, if you only want to copy the files from 1 drive to the other all the caveats have been discussed above. On the other hand, all those problems go away when you use backup/drive imaging software like Acronis True Image, Paragon Backup&Recovery, EaseUS Todo Backup or Macrium Reflection (forgive the Cnet links, but it's the only way to get a nice review).

Acronis doesn't offer a free version (not counting the one offered by some HDD manufacturers that is very limited), but you can find it on sale for $20 and is the one I like most.

[hello_hello]

Rather than it being foolishness, I think even 2TB drives are sometimes sold using the fat32 file system because then you can use the drive with pretty much anything. Not all devices understand NTFS.

I'd agree though.... unless you know you'll need to use it with a non-Windows PC or a device such as a Bluray player which doesn't read NTFS (most do these days) I'd be reformatting it using the NTFS file system before putting anything on it. I've even reformatted my thumb drives using NTFS (aside from an old 2GB one). Even when saving files to a 32GB thumb drive, the 4GB size limit can sometimes be annoying.

I generally just select the "quick format" option when reformatting drives as it still formats them the same way, only it doesn't bother with hours of checking for bad sectors etc. Drives handle bad sectors internally so unless I'm not confident a drive is good and want to give it a bit of a workout, I just "quick format" as it only takes a few seconds.