Albert T Smith Posted December 19, 2006 Share Posted December 19, 2006 My hard drive use the N.T.F.S. file system and my USB memory stick users the FAT file system. Can I change the sticks system to the N.T.F.S. System to standardise matters? if so, how is it done? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unknown Posted December 19, 2006 Share Posted December 19, 2006 NTFS is powerful on large storage devices, while FAT32 is powerful on small. Therefore unless your memory stick is over 20GIG, you cannot and have no need to change it to NTFS. Also, FAT32 has small fault tolerance while NTFS has a high fault tolerance. NTFS is only good for its high capacity and compression methods. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sora Posted December 19, 2006 Share Posted December 19, 2006 If the only reason you are doing this is to make them the same, i wouldn't bother - XP (and Vista) handle FAT32 fine and will do for quite some time. If you want to tho,... Goto properties, Hardware, select the drive, Go to Device Manager and set the policy of the USB Stick device to "Optimize for Performance". The default is to optimize for "Quick Removal", which restricts you to the FAT filesystem. NOTE - WARNING: If you do this, then you absolutely must go through the "removal dialog" to unmount the filesystem EVERY TIME before unplugging the drive. If you don't, then you could lose data. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert T Smith Posted December 19, 2006 Author Share Posted December 19, 2006 NTFS is powerful on large storage devices, while FAT32 is powerful on small. Therefore unless your memory stick is over 20GIG, you cannot and have no need to change it to NTFS. Also, FAT32 has small fault tolerance while NTFS has a high fault tolerance. NTFS is only good for its high capacity and compression methods. Thank you. Can I now be certain that when I transfer files from one computer to another both using the N.T.F.S. File System that the memory stick that users FAT32 will not corrupt my work? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alchresearch Posted December 20, 2006 Share Posted December 20, 2006 The memory sticks I have will only format to FAT and FAT32. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kurlymunky Posted December 20, 2006 Share Posted December 20, 2006 NTFS has a lot of built in, low level security, that may cause problems when used on memory sticks. You might start having problems accessing files on one PC that have been created on a different one. I'd stick with FAT32 if you aren't having any problems. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MickM Posted December 20, 2006 Share Posted December 20, 2006 NTFS is not recommended for flash devices since it has a lot of overhead that will reduce the life span of the device compared to FAT. Plus, older OS's can't read NTFS so you're more likely to encounter compatibility issues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fnkysknky Posted December 20, 2006 Share Posted December 20, 2006 Unless you specifically need any of the features of NTFS on your flash drive (encryption, compression etc.) then it's not worth changing it from it's default format of FAT. There's no need to 'standardise' file systems, there's no inherent problem going from one file system to the other - in other words just because a file is being copied from a FAT device to an NTFS device it wouldn't lead to files being corrupted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert T Smith Posted December 20, 2006 Author Share Posted December 20, 2006 Unless you specifically need any of the features of NTFS on your flash drive (encryption, compression etc.) then it's not worth changing it from it's default format of FAT. There's no need to 'standardise' file systems, there's no inherent problem going from one file system to the other - in other words just because a file is being copied from a FAT device to an NTFS device it wouldn't lead to files being corrupted. Thank you very much. This is to me what the Sheffield Forum is all about. Seeking and recieving advice & help which is not really freely available anywhere else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.