fat 32 or NTFS partition - which is best

[Kopy King]

I am close to buying my first Dvd writer ( a Pioneer DVR-A06 hopefully )how important is my hard drive in regarding a Fat 32 or NTFS partitions I am Currently using Fat 32 after upgrading to Windows Xp recently and how easy is it to convert to NTFS

[txpharoah]

Go for NTFS when doing video work. It's easy.

[Kopy King]

cheers mate hopefully I'll be up and running in a couple of weeks

[poopyhead]

FAT32 limits file sizes to max of 4 gigs...so if you're making an .iso image file of a DVD greater than 4 gigs...the .iso file will be truncated at 3.99 gigs...so best bet is to go /w NTFS, like txpharoah said

[dcsos]

BAck up your stuff if you're swithcing a drive with data on it
over to the new file format
ONE in a thousand TIMES THE CONVERSION IS NOT GOOD

ITS way BETTER TO FORMAT A RAW DRIVE THAN CONVERT ONE THAT HAS STUFF ON IT

[FT Shark]

NTFS without a doubt. It runs faster and has less problems while running. Converting to NTFS with WinXP is a snap. It takes no time at all and you won't loose a bit of data. Good Luck!!!

[dcsos]

It takes no time at all and you won't loose a bit of data

BUT you will not be able to select the 4kb cluster size if you convert in WIN 2k so do as he says in XP only because

In Windows 2000, CONVERT handled this problem by forcing an NTFS cluster size of 512 bytes, which resulted in reduced performance and increased disk fragmentation. In Windows XP, CONVERT chooses the best cluster size (4K is the ideal).

so in 2000 the convesion is a WORKAROUND at BEST
WHICH is why getting your data off there first and formatting a raw drive is preferable

[jrbling]

NTFS has better support for large file size, obviously video files can be gigantic, so NTFS will be optimal

[Kopy King]

Thanks for the advice . Ill get on with it