file system

ZFR · 09-29-2006, 06:18 AM

Two question:

1. When dual-booting windows me/98 and xp, is it better to have FAT32 on the win 98/me partition and NTFS on all the others or is it better to keep FAT32 on all?

2. which is generally better fat32 or ntfs and why?

And as a bonus quesion:

Does it affect game's performance if the game is installed on a different
a)partition
b)hard-disc
than widows XP?

Bungleau · 09-29-2006, 08:56 AM

It's been a while since I played with dual-booting, but...

Win 98 cannot read NTFS. It's foreign. I'm not sure if ME can, but ME is a piece of hogslop. So anything on an NTFS mount is invisible.

All things being equal, NTFS is better. It's better structured and wastes less space.

For the bonus, putting things on a different partition will never help, and may hurt performance. Putting them on a different disk will never hurt, and may help. You can put as many partitions as you want on a drive, but you still have just one set of read/write heads for it. Think of a waiter or waitress serving one table or ten... performance goes down as each table demands more.

shamrock_uk · 09-29-2006, 09:09 AM

FAT32 for the Win98 partition, NTFS for the WinXP and the rest.

FAT32 should only be used for data you don't mind losing.

NTFS is a milestone better than FAT32 for many reasons:

1) A journal (ie you're much less likely to lose data due to a filesystem corruption)

2) Encryption features of WinXP (won't work on FAT)

3) Permissions systems of WinXP (won't work on FAT)

4) Scalability (ie you can have much larger partitions / more files etc)

and a load of others I can't remember.

Re game performance, if you have enough RAM then there won't be much of an impact from placing a game on a separate drive. If you don't have enough RAM and your computer is heavily swapping then perhaps you would benefit a little bit.

Placing it on a separate partition is good from a data recovery point of view, but won't do anything for performance - the same set of disk heads is having to jump from partition to partition just as it would if Windows and your game were on the same partition.

A separate disk means two sets of disk heads and should improve performance.

Edit: Bungleau beat me to it [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 09-29-2006, 09:13 AM: Message edited by: shamrock_uk ]

09-29-2006, 06:18 AM	#1
ZFR Legion Symbol Join Date: February 14, 2002 Location: Ireland Age: 41 Posts: 7,370	Two question: 1. When dual-booting windows me/98 and xp, is it better to have FAT32 on the win 98/me partition and NTFS on all the others or is it better to keep FAT32 on all? 2. which is generally better fat32 or ntfs and why? And as a bonus quesion: Does it affect game's performance if the game is installed on a different a)partition b)hard-disc than widows XP? __________________ ZFR

09-29-2006, 08:56 AM	#2
Bungleau 40th Level Warrior Join Date: October 29, 2001 Location: Western Wilds of Michigan Posts: 11,752	It's been a while since I played with dual-booting, but... Win 98 cannot read NTFS. It's foreign. I'm not sure if ME can, but ME is a piece of hogslop. So anything on an NTFS mount is invisible. All things being equal, NTFS is better. It's better structured and wastes less space. For the bonus, putting things on a different partition will never help, and may hurt performance. Putting them on a different disk will never hurt, and may help. You can put as many partitions as you want on a drive, but you still have just one set of read/write heads for it. Think of a waiter or waitress serving one table or ten... performance goes down as each table demands more. __________________ B Save Early, Save Often Save Before, Save After Two-Star General, Spelling Soldiers -+-+-+ Give 'em a hug one more time. It might be the last.

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09-29-2006, 09:09 AM	#3
shamrock_uk Dracolich Join Date: January 24, 2004 Location: UK Age: 42 Posts: 3,092	FAT32 for the Win98 partition, NTFS for the WinXP and the rest. FAT32 should only be used for data you don't mind losing. NTFS is a milestone better than FAT32 for many reasons: 1) A journal (ie you're much less likely to lose data due to a filesystem corruption) 2) Encryption features of WinXP (won't work on FAT) 3) Permissions systems of WinXP (won't work on FAT) 4) Scalability (ie you can have much larger partitions / more files etc) and a load of others I can't remember. Re game performance, if you have enough RAM then there won't be much of an impact from placing a game on a separate drive. If you don't have enough RAM and your computer is heavily swapping then perhaps you would benefit a little bit. Placing it on a separate partition is good from a data recovery point of view, but won't do anything for performance - the same set of disk heads is having to jump from partition to partition just as it would if Windows and your game were on the same partition. A separate disk means two sets of disk heads and should improve performance. Edit: Bungleau beat me to it [img]smile.gif[/img] [ 09-29-2006, 09:13 AM: Message edited by: shamrock_uk ]

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