I hope this thread belongs here !!

can anybody tell me, what are the main advantages or disadvantage of NTFS against FAT32 and their differences?

I have read an article, where it simply describes them this way:
NTFS is a bit more reliable than FAT32, while FAT32 is compatible with older versions of Windows and linux ones.

NTFS:
Security
Reliability

FAT32:
Speed
Accessibility from other OSes (Linux, etc.)

Here is where my dilemma starts.... Is it really justified to format it at fat32 in order to use (read/write) in my RH distro?

well the long and short of it is, if you want read/write access then you have no choice but to format with a fat32 partition..plain and simple..
the only security ntfs has really is the fact that you can't boot up with a windows bootdisk and access the system if you don't have the admin password because fat can't read ntfs...
that is all theoretically speaking...
cause if you want you can just get a file that you put on your win bootdisk and mount the ntfs volume as say for example drive H: and then you delete the sam file on the ntfs drive and reboot and then the admin password is blank and now you have access....so basically its no more secure than fat...cause what i just said can take any normal person about 2 mins to do that....
so personally i would use fat, instead of ntfs, cause the only difference in my mind is the fact of not writing to the drive when using ntfs, i don't look at the security and speed and all them other """features""" to be anything to affect your decision, either you want read/write or not, thats what it all boils down to...

If you want cutting and mixing and compiling video from camera and etc., you need support for files bigger than 4GB. It is main advantage of NTFS.
FAT32 support max file size 4GB.

This should give you a good idea.

http://www.ntfs.com/ntfs_vs_fat.htm

I personally would never do FAT32 on purpose

I do edit video's and a good bunch of them are larger than 4GB. Secondly. NTFS is faster, and more stable.

Peace,
Whitehat

How about creating 3 partitions, one NTFS, one FAT32, and one ext2/ext3/reiserfs?

For files you want accessible under both Linux and Windows, put them in the FAT partition.`

Well, I'm still looking for a better alternative for my datapartition. I have a dualboot system with Win2k and Linux and all my data is on a 100GB Fat32. You can guess how worried I am

Anyway, I made the experience that at this partition size the maximum file size is only 2GB. However I don't exactly know why?

There is sort of NTFS read/write support (at least read, I'm almost positive write also) you need the 2.6 kernel among other things, and it's not realy "safe".

Misel, try using FIPS to resize your FAT32 partition, although if it's full it's impossible unless you delete or transfer some files. It is non destructive, but backup your data JIC.

I believe FAT32 supports max file size of 2GB, not 4GB.

Read-Write support in the 2.4 Kernel is experimental. However, in the 2.6 Kernel it is stable. Also I have written to my NTFS partition from Linux (on my laptop I dual-boot between Windows 2000 and Slackware) - So I doubt any problems would arise if you wrote to an NTFS partition.

I thought that 2.6 had limited write capablilites..... You could write to a file, so long as you did not change the size of the file you wrote to and you could not create new files...... That was what the 2.6.0 documentation stated. Has that changed since 2.6.3 came along?

I've experienced systems with both limitations.

I think it depends on the partition size.

I didn't think Fat supported a HDD with >30gb?
I had a problem with my computer, I couldn't install a 60gb HDD and when I took it in the guy told me it was the FS (Which would have been Fat32 since the OS was Win98se)

I think that FAT32 supports volume sizes up to 4 TB in size,... I'm not sure about file size.

Currently, there are no ordinary hard drives with sizes of 4TB so there is nothing to worry about. 4 TB is a lot of space, 40x bigger than a 100 GB HD.

Here are some links that would do this thread some good....

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/h..._and_FAT32.asp
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;EN-US;184006
http://www.experts-exchange.com/Oper..._20343072.html

Some of the information conflicts may have to do what is theorectically possible and what Microsoft allows. The 2nd article says you can't format a partition larter than 32 gigs, but I know you can use one that is larger. I have a 40+ partition on my system at home. I assume this is to coax you into using NTFS because it is better when you are using a windows only system. note: on the last link you have to scroll a bit to get to the actual content....