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USB Drive question

Posted: 26 Oct 2005, 04:14
by FizWizz
Alright, I don't know a whole lot about Windows' file systems so if I make a blunder here or there, I'd be more than glad to be corrected.
I have a 2Gb Flash drive and I wanted to know this: currently it uses the FAT32 file system, and I wanted to know if I would get much more space by reformatting it to NTFS, which as I understand it, makes better use of disc space in one way or another. I haven't done it yet because I know that it also has system files on it, and I don't know if/how I can preserve these files through the reformatting process. Any help here would be appreciated..

Posted: 26 Oct 2005, 14:00
by Kuroneko
Most flashdrives don't like NTFS. Besides, using NTFS causes more writes to the drives, and since flash drives have a limited number of times each area can be written to, you'd be killing the drive faster.

Posted: 26 Oct 2005, 14:48
by SwiftSpear
NTFS technically makes better use of diskspace, but practically it instantly sections off 15% of whatever partition you apply it to so it's pretty useless for it's compression abilites.

Posted: 26 Oct 2005, 16:34
by FizWizz
Alright then, I guess I should be happy with what I've got.

Posted: 26 Oct 2005, 17:08
by AF
Also note that using NTFS means you need to enable delayed write caching so you cant just unplug your drive straight out anymore either.