A few days ago, I purchased an 8TB desktop external hard drive. It came with the exFAT file system on it. However, I am considering replacing this file system with NTFS, but don’t know whether I should or not. I am wondering what the general advantages and disadvantages of both the NTFS and the exFAT file systems are. My computer is a custom build, approximately one year old, running Windows 10 Pro (upgraded to Windows 10 Pro from Windows 10 Home after realising what a terrible mistake I had made in allowing myself to be talked into getting Windows 10 Home). I am more interested in well-informed opinions than technical specifications because I feel that the sort of thing that is a more important basis for decision isn’t really covered by a technical specification.

KJW said:

A few days ago, I purchased an 8TB desktop external hard drive. It came with the exFAT file system on it. However, I am considering replacing this file system with NTFS, but don’t know whether I should or not. I am wondering what the general advantages and disadvantages of both the NTFS and the exFAT file systems are. My computer is a custom build, approximately one year old, running Windows 10 Pro (upgraded to Windows 10 Pro from Windows 10 Home after realising what a terrible mistake I had made in allowing myself to be talked into getting Windows 10 Home). I am more interested in well-informed opinions than technical specifications because I feel that the sort of thing that is a more important basis for decision isn’t really covered by a technical specification.

I’ve found it to be better for v large disks

KJW said:

A few days ago, I purchased an 8TB desktop external hard drive. It came with the exFAT file system on it. However, I am considering replacing this file system with NTFS, but don’t know whether I should or not. I am wondering what the general advantages and disadvantages of both the NTFS and the exFAT file systems are. My computer is a custom build, approximately one year old, running Windows 10 Pro (upgraded to Windows 10 Pro from Windows 10 Home after realising what a terrible mistake I had made in allowing myself to be talked into getting Windows 10 Home). I am more interested in well-informed opinions than technical specifications because I feel that the sort of thing that is a more important basis for decision isn’t really covered by a technical specification.

I’ve found it to be better for v large disks

Ie NTFS

dv said:

I’ve found it to be better for v large disks

Ie NTFS

In what way? It is my understanding that exFAT is also designed for large drives, although I suspect that its main advantage is that can used by Macs (which probably won’t be important to me in the future).

KJW said:

dv said:

I’ve found it to be better for v large disks

Ie NTFS

In what way? It is my understanding that exFAT is also designed for large drives, although I suspect that its main advantage is that can used by Macs (which probably won’t be important to me in the future).

I ended up switching to NFTS for my major large drives to improve the write speed

Some links for NTFS vs exFAT

https://www.howtogeek.com/235596/whats-the-difference-between-fat32-exfat-and-ntfs/

https://www.softwaretestinghelp.com/exfat-vs-ntfs/

https://www.guru99.com/fat32-vs-exfat-vs-ntfs-difference.html

https://history-computer.com/exfat-vs-ntfs/

https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/difference-between-exfat-and-ntfs/

Both have advantages and disadvantages. If you’re planning to (or may in the future) connect the disk to macOS, go with exFAT; that OS can’t write to NTFS. If you plan to use ADSs, go with NTFS; exFAT can’t handle those. Remember that both filesystems are more than 25 years old (FAT was updated to exFAT when disks became too large for FAT to handle); there are more modern, better designed filesystems (like ZFS) that may be more suited to your use scenarios.

dv said:

I ended up switching to NFTS for my major large drives to improve the write speed

Ok.

Some more info…

exFAT is the preferred file format for flash storage drives that you share between Windows and Mac.

exFAT Works with all versions of Windows and Modern versions of Mac OS X and Linux.

NTFS Works with all versions of Windows, read-only on Mac OS X by default. Read-only by default on some Linux distributions.

Tau.Neutrino said:

Some links for NTFS vs exFAT

https://www.howtogeek.com/235596/whats-the-difference-between-fat32-exfat-and-ntfs/

https://www.softwaretestinghelp.com/exfat-vs-ntfs/

https://www.guru99.com/fat32-vs-exfat-vs-ntfs-difference.html

https://history-computer.com/exfat-vs-ntfs/

https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/difference-between-exfat-and-ntfs/

Thanks, I’ll have a look at these and let you know if it helps me with my decision.

If you are going to use this as an external drive then just stick with exFAT. You are probably not going to find any real advantage going to NTFS*.

(* Unless you have a special use case)

NERDS

btm said:

If you plan to use ADSs, go with NTFS; exFAT can’t handle those.

What are ADSs?

btm said:

there are more modern, better designed filesystems (like ZFS) that may be more suited to your use scenarios.

No, something other than NTFS or exFAT is not what I’m looking for.

KJW said:

btm said:

If you plan to use ADSs, go with NTFS; exFAT can’t handle those.

What are ADSs?

Alternate data streams
KJW said:

btm said:

there are more modern, better designed filesystems (like ZFS) that may be more suited to your use scenarios.

No, something other than NTFS or exFAT is not what I’m looking for.

OK.

fsm said:

If you are going to use this as an external drive then just stick with exFAT. You are probably not going to find any real advantage going to NTFS*.

(* Unless you have a special use case)

Actually, I don’t have a “special use” case, and I probably should’ve mentioned that. If I did have a special use case, the decision would probably be easier.

KJW said:

dv said:

I ended up switching to NFTS for my major large drives to improve the write speed

Ok.

exFAT has a smaller overhead than NTFS (no journaling) so it should actually perform a bit better than NTFS on low powered devices/interfaces.

sibeen said:

NERDS

Is that a Linux file system? :-P

• No, something other than NTFS or exFAT is not what I’m looking for.

That’s a strange stance. If you are going to rule out something that might be better, then what’s the point in choosing between those two? Just flip a coin…

sibeen said:

NERDS

ANTI-NERD

furious said:

• No, something other than NTFS or exFAT is not what I’m looking for.

That’s a strange stance. If you are going to rule out something that might be better, then what’s the point in choosing between those two? Just flip a coin…

No, because bringing in a whole new file system brings with it a whole lot of other considerations.

NTFS has file permissions, encryption and journaling, exFAT does not have these.

Journaling is a feature that allows the file system to keep records of changes made. This is useful for protection against data corruption.

fsm said:

exFAT has a smaller overhead than NTFS (no journaling) so it should actually perform a bit better than NTFS on low powered devices/interfaces.

Doesn’t journaling make the drive more reliable?

KJW said:

fsm said:

exFAT has a smaller overhead than NTFS (no journaling) so it should actually perform a bit better than NTFS on low powered devices/interfaces.

Doesn’t journaling make the drive more reliable?

usb drives exFAT can be NTFS

pc hard drives NTFS

Tau.Neutrino said:

NTFS has file permissions, encryption and journaling, exFAT does not have these.

I suspected that exFAT doesn’t have permissions, encryption and journaling. This aspect of NTFS is significant to me, though I’m not sure whether to see this as an advantage or a burden.

Tau.Neutrino said:

Journaling is a feature that allows the file system to keep records of changes made. This is useful for protection against data corruption.

Ok.

KJW said:

fsm said:

exFAT has a smaller overhead than NTFS (no journaling) so it should actually perform a bit better than NTFS on low powered devices/interfaces.

Doesn’t journaling make the drive more reliable?

Journaling does not make the drive more reliable, it can make the drive more recoverable*. But if the external drive suffers a hardware failure then no amount of journaling will help. The best form of recovery is backup.

(*Maybe)

fsm said:

KJW said:

fsm said:

exFAT has a smaller overhead than NTFS (no journaling) so it should actually perform a bit better than NTFS on low powered devices/interfaces.

Doesn’t journaling make the drive more reliable?

Journaling does not make the drive more reliable, it can make the drive more recoverable*. But if the external drive suffers a hardware failure then no amount of journaling will help. The best form of recovery is backup.

(*Maybe)

I was thinking that. I bought the hard drive as a replacement for a hard drive that was starting to fail, so I was acutely aware that no amount of file system recovery was going to help with a hardware failure.

fsm said:

sibeen said:

NERDS

ANTI-NERD

A question for both nerds and antinerds:

What is so terrible about Windows home?

The Rev Dodgson said:

fsm said:

sibeen said:

NERDS

ANTI-NERD

A question for both nerds and antinerds:

What is so terrible about Windows home?

Its back door.

roughbarked said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

fsm said:

ANTI-NERD

A question for both nerds and antinerds:

What is so terrible about Windows home?

Its back door.

Care to expand a little on that?

The Rev Dodgson said:

fsm said:

sibeen said:

NERDS

ANTI-NERD

A question for both nerds and antinerds:

What is so terrible about Windows home?

It lacks some of the functionality of windows pro.

The Rev Dodgson said:

roughbarked said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

A question for both nerds and antinerds:

What is so terrible about Windows home?

Its back door.

Care to expand a little on that?

I’m sure the backdoor is known to many.

The Rev Dodgson said:

fsm said:

sibeen said:

NERDS

ANTI-NERD

A question for both nerds and antinerds:

What is so terrible about Windows home?

On paper, it is missing most of the corporate IT stuff that home users would never use. But in reality, newer versions of the OS are missing essential repair tools for when things start playing up.

Dark Orange said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

fsm said:

ANTI-NERD

A question for both nerds and antinerds:

What is so terrible about Windows home?

On paper, it is missing most of the corporate IT stuff that home users would never use. But in reality, newer versions of the OS are missing essential repair tools for when things start playing up.

So useless unless these tools can still be installed or run from another startup disc.

KJW said:

dv said:

I’ve found it to be better for v large disks

Ie NTFS

In what way? It is my understanding that exFAT is also designed for large drives, although I suspect that its main advantage is that can used by Macs (which probably won’t be important to me in the future).

That’s pretty much it.

roughbarked said:

Dark Orange said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

A question for both nerds and antinerds:

What is so terrible about Windows home?

On paper, it is missing most of the corporate IT stuff that home users would never use. But in reality, newer versions of the OS are missing essential repair tools for when things start playing up.

So useless unless these tools can still be installed or run from another startup disc.

Yeah, Microsoft have thought of that. While those tools can be downloaded and installed on Home versions, Windows will not run them.

Dark Orange said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

fsm said:

ANTI-NERD

A question for both nerds and antinerds:

What is so terrible about Windows home?

On paper, it is missing most of the corporate IT stuff that home users would never use. But in reality, newer versions of the OS are missing essential repair tools for when things start playing up.

Thanks DO.

The Rev Dodgson said:

Dark Orange said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

A question for both nerds and antinerds:

What is so terrible about Windows home?

On paper, it is missing most of the corporate IT stuff that home users would never use. But in reality, newer versions of the OS are missing essential repair tools for when things start playing up.

Thanks DO.

This looks like a reasonable summary:

https://www.lifewire.com/windows-10-home-vs-pro-4177144

thanks