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Windows common disk file system advantages and disadvantages detailed

Usually when we use Windows
system, when you encounter the disk to be formatted, you will see that there are "FAT" in the file system options, "FAT", "FAT32" ;, “NTFS” and other options, when the U disk or other mobile storage device formatted will also appear "exfAT" option, then what is the difference between these four disk formats? What are their advantages and disadvantages? How should we choose the appropriate disk format? Here is a detailed introduction to the four disk file system formats under the Windows
system.

Before introducing the differences between these four disk formats, let's take a look at what is a disk file system. A hard disk that has not been formatted can be compared to a supermarket with no merchandise placed. Before placing the product, always divide the area according to the product category and install the shelf. The partitioning and formatting operation of the disk is equivalent to dividing the commodity area and installing the shelves in the supermarket hypermarket.
First, FAT (FAT16)
This is the most common hard disk partition format in MS-DOS and the earliest WIN95 operating system
. It uses a 16-bit file allocation table that supports up to 2GB of hard disk partitions.
FAT file system advantages: FAT (FAT16) is the most widely used disk partition format currently available, and almost all operating systems support this format, from DOS WINDOWS95/98/NT/ME /2000/XP, even LINUX supports this partition format.
FAT file system disadvantages: only supports 2GB partitions at most, and each partition can only have a maximum of 65,525 clusters. Therefore, disk utilization efficiency is very low. Because in DOS and WINDOWS systems, the allocation of disk files is in clusters, a cluster is only allocated to one file, regardless of the size of the entire cluster. Thus, even if a file is small, it will occupy a cluster, and the remaining space will be idle there, resulting in a waste of disk space. Due to the limitation of the capacity of the partition table, the larger the partition of the FAT, the larger the capacity of each cluster on the disk, and the greater the waste.
FAT file system, currently except for some special applications, is basically no longer used. Imagine that the current mainstream hard drive capacity has reached 1TB (1TB = 1024GB), if you use the FAT format, each partition can only be 2GB, then how many drive letters will be in the computer
! Br> Second, FAT32
I believe that everyone will not be too strange to the FAT32 file system, after all, from Win98, FAT32 has been widely used. The FAT32 format uses a 32-bit file allocation table, which greatly enhances its ability to disk. It breaks the FAT16 limit of only 2GB for each partition. The operating system above Win95 supports the FAT32 format.
FAT32 file system advantages: Breaking the FAT limit of 2GB per partition, can support partitions up to 2TB (2048G). Under the partition capacity of no more than 8GB, the capacity of each cluster is fixed at 4KB. Compared with FAT16, the disk waste can be greatly reduced and the disk utilization can be improved.
FAT32 file system disadvantages: Disks partitioned by FAT32 format, because of the expansion of the file allocation table, the running speed is slower than the disk partitioned by FAT16 format, and the DOS system and some early application software do not support this partition format. . There is also a fatal flaw that makes FAT32 gradually eliminated, which is that FAT32's single file can only support up to 4GB. Now that the HD era has entered, 720P and 1080P HD video files are easily over 4GB, so FAT32 has gone down.
Note: When using the built-in disk management tool to partition the hard disk in windows2000/xp and later operating systems, only the maximum 32GB FAT32 file system can be created. This is the Windows limitation. Partitioning with other third-party tools or partitioning under DOS or Win98 can separate larger partitions and can be used normally in windows2000/xp.
Three, NTFS
NTFS is a disk format that has gradually become mainstream from Windows XP system. It is supported by a series of operating systems of Microsoft Windows NT kernel, and is specially designed for management security features such as network and disk quotas and file encryption. Disk format. Operating systems that support the NTFS disk format are: WINDOWS NT, WINDOWS2000, WINDOWS2003, WINDOWS XP, WINDOWS vista, WINDOWS7, and so on. Therefore, NTFS is still the mainstream disk format and is used by a large number of users.
NTFS file system advantages: NTFS partitions are extremely secure and stable, and are not prone to file fragmentation during use. It can record the user's operation. By restricting the user's authority very strictly, each user can only operate according to the authority granted by the system, which fully protects the security of the system and data. In addition, for most users, the most intuitive advantage of NTFS is that the size of a single file breaks the 4GB limit of FAT32.
NTFS file system shortcomings: Although NTFS has many advantages, these are designed for traditional mechanical hard drives, and may not be suitable for emerging Flash flash materials. The NTFS partition uses the file system of "Log". Because the detailed read and write operations of the disk are recorded, the flash storage medium of the USB flash drive imposes a large burden, such as accessing a file or directory in NTFS. The number of reads and writes on the system will be much higher than that of FAT32. In theory, the USB disk of NTFS format is more vulnerable, and the partition below 400MB is also more wasteful than FAT16.
4, exFAT
exFAT is a format that has appeared in recent years, mainly for mobile storage devices, what flash memory, U disk, and so on. Because the FAT32 format can not exceed 4G for a single file, and the NTFS format is easy to damage the flash chip, the EXFAT format was developed to solve these problems.
exFAT file system advantages: partition size and single file size up to 16EB (16 & times; 1024 & times; 1024TB); cluster size is very flexible, minimum 0.5KB, up to 32MB; using the remaining space allocation table, space utilization more High; the maximum number of files in the same directory can reach 65,536; support access control; support TFAT (WINCE early file system). It can be seen that ExFAT is a flash-only file system. Only U disk and memory card can be formatted into exFAT. Traditional hard disk cannot be formatted into exFAT format, because the feature of exFAT is actually not stronger than NTFS, but it is more than NTFS and FAT32. Suitable for flash memory use.
exFAT file system disadvantages: exFAT as a new file system, the compatibility on the computer is not very good, the current mainstream XP and Vista do not support ExFAT by default, XP needs to be upgraded to SP3 patch, Vista needs to be upgraded It is only supported by the SP1 patch. Of course, Microsoft also provides a separate update file for exFAT, which is supported by Win7.