Comparison between NTFS and FAT FileSystem

Data Recovery Resource

Understanding the Operating System or File System

Understanding the Operating System or File System

Multi-Booting	Windows Bootup Process	NTFS vs FAT
Encrypting File System	FAT by George Hernandez

NTFS VS FAT

Criteria	NTFS5	NTFS	FAT32	FAT16
Operating System	Windows 2000 Windows XP	Windows NT Windows 2000 Windows XP	Windows 98 Windows ME Windows 2000 Windows XP	DOS All versions of Microsoft Windows

Limitations
Max Volume Size	2TB	2TB	2TB	2GB
Max Files on Volume	Nearly Unlimited	Nearly Unlimited	Nearly Unlimited	~65000
Max File Size	Limit Only by Volume Size	Limit Only by Volume Size	4GB	2GB
Max Clusters Number	Nearly Unlimited	Nearly Unlimited	268435456	65535
Max File Name Length	Up to 255	Up to 255	Up to 255	Standard - 8.3 Extended - up to 255

File System Features
Unicode File Names	Unicode Character Set	Unicode Character Set	System Character Set	System Character Set
System Records Mirror	MFT Mirror File	MFT Mirror File	Second Copy of FAT	Second Copy of FAT
Boot Sector Location	First and Last Sectors	First and Last Sectors	First Sector	First Sector
File Attributes	Standard and Custom	Standard and Custom	Standard Set	Standard Set
Alternate Streams	Yes	Yes	No	No
Compression	Yes	Yes	No	No
Encryption	Yes	No	No	No
Object Permissions	Yes	Yes	No	No
Disk Quotas	Yes	No	No	No
Sparse Files	Yes	No	No	No
Reparse Points	Yes	No	No	No
Volume Mount Points	Yes	No	No	No

Overall Performance
Built-In Security	Yes	Yes	No	No
Recoverability	Yes	Yes	No	No
Performance	Low on small volumes High on Large	Low on small volumes High on Large	High on small volumes Low on large	Highest on small volumes Low on large
Disk Space Economy	Max	Max	Average	Minimal on large volumes
Fault Tolerance	Max	Max	Minimal	Average

Article reprinted with permission of www.NTFS.com