Any real issues with FAT32 format for external drive?

[malibu43]

Folks,

 

I got a new 320 GB hard drive for my MacBook for x-mas, so I saved the old 160gb hard drive, bought an enclosure for it on ebay and it's now a 160GB external drive. I did this the last time I upgraded with an old 80GB. Since I use both Mac and PC, and prefer to 1) be able to share the files between the two if I need to and 2) not have to determine how much space I need for each OS ahead of time, I formatted the 80gb hard drive as FAT32 (vs an OSX partition and NTFS partition).

 

As of last night, I've done the same thing with the new hard 160gb drive (FAT32), but in reading on the internet, I see things about FAT32 having problems with larger capacity drives and potentially "inefficent" use of space. I didn't have any issues over the last few years with my 80GB hard drive.

 

Is there any reason (other than a 4GB file size limit) that I should steer clear of FAT32 for backing up my files? Like I said, given that I use two OS's frequently, it's really the easiest format for me to use.

 

If for some reason I should not be backing up on FAT32, I could alway have the 160GB hard drive be formatted for 110GB OSX and 50GB FAT32 (the FAT32 would just be for temporarily storing files that I want to move from the Mac to PC, for example, my ~40GB of music files), and then I could format the 80GB hard drive for NTFS for backing up gaming stuff from my windows install.

 

So, like I said, FAT32 is a lot easier. So, given my intended use, any reason to steer away from FAT32?

[+FastCargo]

Here's a big reason:

 

http://www.theeldergeek.com/ntfs_or_fat32_file_system.htm

 

FAT32 drives are much more susceptible to disk errors.

 

NTFS volumes have the ability to recover from errors more readily than similar FAT32 volumes.

 

Log files are created under NTFS which can be used for automatic file system repairs.

 

NTFS supports dynamic cluster remapping for bad sectors and prevent them from being used in the future.

 

You are much more likely to lose info on an external drive with a sudden power failure (I know, shouldn't happen on a laptop) with FAT32 vs NTFS.

 

If you have Snow Leopard, you can use iNFTS to be able to fully read/write to your NTFS drive at the kernal level.

 

If you have an older version of OSX, you can try this program: http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/system_disk_utilities/ntfs3g.html

 

I've just downloaded, installed and tried it out (I run OSX 10.5.6). Seems to work just fine in copying files back and forth...no issues noted and is transparent to the user.

 

FC

[malibu43]

Thanks.

 

Looks like I've been lucky with FAT32 so far and I probably want to chang my strategy moving forward.

 

I'll probably just split the hard drive into HFS and NTFS and write to those partitions from their respective OS's. I know Mac's can read (but not write) NTFS and it looks like there are free drivers to allow winXP to read HFS, so I can still transfer stuff from one OS to the other easily using those two partitions. Plus I can look around for programs that allow the OS's to write the other format if I really need to.

 

Thanks!

[+FastCargo]

That's why I posted those links...those are OSX programs that allow you to read AND write to NTFS partitions. Totally transparent to the user...you wouldn't know the difference.

 

If I was you, I'd go full NTFS on the external drive, use one of the programs I listed in the post (they're both freeware), and you're there...no flipping back and forth on partitions.

 

FC

[malibu43]

That's why I posted those links...those are OSX programs that allow you to read AND write to NTFS partitions. Totally transparent to the user...you wouldn't know the difference.

 

If I was you, I'd go full NTFS on the external drive, use one of the programs I listed in the post (they're both freeware), and you're there...no flipping back and forth on partitions.

 

FC

 

You're the man. Thanks!