NTFS and FAT

What is NTFS and FAT?

NTFS

NTFS (New Technology File System). It was Introduced  in July 1993 (Windows NT 3.1)

An advanced file system that provides performance, security, reliability, and advanced features that are not found in any version of FAT. For example, NTFS guarantees volume consistency by using standard transaction logging and recovery techniques. If a system fails, NTFS uses its log file and checkpoint information to restore the consistency of the file system. In Windows 2000 and Windows XP, NTFS also provides advanced features such as file and folder permissions, encryption, reliability, disk space utilization,  plus additional extensions, compression. such as security access control lists (ACL) and file system journaling.

File Allocation Table (FAT)
A file system used by MS-DOS and other Windows-based operating systems to organize and manage files. The file allocation table (FAT) is a data structure that Windows creates when you format a volume by using the FAT or FAT32 file systems.

The FAT file system is a legacy filesystem which is very simple, but cannot offer the same performance, reliability and scalability that modern filesystems such as NTFS, ext4 and btrfs can offer. It is however supported for compatibility reasons by virtually all existing operating systems for personal computers, and thus is a well-suited format for data exchange between computers and devices of almost any type and age from the early 1980s up to the present.

Today, FAT file systems are still commonly found on floppy disks, solid-state memory cards, flash memory cards, and on many portable and embedded devices.

FAT32
A derivative of the file allocation table (FAT) file system. FAT32 supports smaller cluster sizes and larger volumes than FAT, which results in more efficient space allocation on FAT32 volumes.

NTFS vs FAT

* NTFS Removal of the limitations of the FAT and HPFS file systems 

* NTFS is much faster than FAT32, it fragments less, and has a 4k cluster size which matches the rocessors  paging size.
* NTFS is safer than FAT32, because it allows the use of per file permissions. Real file ownership limits access to files to their ownersup to 4GB in size.
* Allows you to have files in any size, that is, if you have 200GB of free space, then you can have a 200GB file, compared to a maximum of 4GB on fat32. 

Converting FAT volumes to NTFS

 To convert a volume to NTFS from the command prompt

1. Open Command Prompt. Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, and then click Command Prompt.
   
2. In the command prompt window, type: convert drive_letter: /fs:ntfs
   

   C:\>CONVERT  C:  /fs:ntfs

For example, typing convert C: /fs:ntfs would format drive D: with the ntfs format. You can convert FAT or FAT32 volumes to NTFS with this command.

Now you are recommended to restart the system. After Restart the System you will get message NTFS converted Succesfully.

Warning  Converting file system can be cause of losing the data.

Important  Once you convert a drive or partition to NTFS, you cannot simply convert it back to FAT or FAT32. You will need to reformat the drive or partition which will erase all data, including programs and personal files, on the partition.