What are FAT32 and NTFS drive formatting?
The DataLocker comes preformatted in the NTFS format due to its superior performance, support and capabilities for high capacity hard drives.
Windows Users
If you require a drive which can be used on multiple operating systems, you may need to reformat the drive in the FAT32 format. Microsoft has eliminated support for FAT32 formatting for drives over 32GB so you must use a third party tool for formatting. We recommend Swiss Knife , an excellent free tool by CompuApps.
Mac Users
Mac OS users can read files from an NTFS formatted drive, however thay cannot write files to one. Mac OS users must reformat the drive with the FAT32 format in order to read and write to the drive. The native Mac HFS format is also supported, choose this file system if you will only be using the DataLocker on a Mac system.
Linux Users
Linux users may use the DataLocker without reformatting if they they have an NTFS driver installed.
If you can not use NTFS drives you must reformat the drive using the FAT32 format.
Linux native ext2 and ext3 drive formats are currently being tested.
Below is a summary of the key differences between NTFS and FAT32.
NTFS vs FAT32
“Article reprinted with permission of www.NTFS.com”
|
Criteria |
NTFS |
FAT32 |
|||
|
Operating System |
Windows NT |
DOS v7 and higher |
|||
|
File Limitations |
|||||
|
Max Volume Size |
2TB |
2TB for some OS |
|||
|
Max Files on Volume |
Nearly Unlimited |
4194304 |
|||
|
Max File Size |
Limit Only by |
4GB minus 2 Bytes |
|||
|
Max Clusters Number |
Nearly Unlimited |
4177918 |
|||
|
Max File Name Length |
Up to 255 |
Up to 255 |
|||
|
|
|||||
|
File System Features |
|||||
|
Unicode File Names |
Unicode Character Set |
System Character Set |
|||
|
System Records Mirror |
MFT Mirror File |
Second Copy of FAT |
|||
|
Boot Sector Location |
First and Last Sectors |
First Sector and |
|||
|
File Attributes |
Standard and Custom |
Standard Set |
|||
|
Alternate Streams |
Yes |
No |
|||
|
Compression |
Yes |
No |
|||
|
Encryption |
No |
No |
|||
|
Object Permissions |
Yes |
No |
|||
|
Disk Quotas |
No |
No |
|||
|
Sparse Files |
No |
No |
|||
|
Reparse Points |
No |
No |
|||
|
Volume Mount Points |
No |
No |
|||
|
|
|||||
|
Overall Performance |
|||||
|
Recoverability |
Yes |
No |
|||
|
Performance |
Low on small volumes |
High on small volumes |
|||
|
Disk Space Economy |
Max |
Average |
|||
|
Fault Tolerance |
Max |
Minimal |
|||