Apple Ghost…

What’s the comparision between NTFS and FAT32? The latter allows native write from MacOS X.

Any tricks for backing up the Windows partition (using either FAT32 or NTFS)?

dave

What are the differences between FAT32 and NTFS?, Wow, that subject fills books.

Both FAT32 and NTFS are logical structures for finding files within the physical structure of a disk. “Disk” here can also mean storage device, as we see more and more solid-state “disks” and flash memory cards. Both FAT 32 and NTFS are “lookup tables”, if you will, to find your files, and to find space for them.

A little history: FAT32 (or an MS-DOS partition, in Apple Disk Utility Parlance) started showing up as in late Win95 releases (OEM SvcRel 2.1 and 2.5), and was an available supported option in Win98.

FAT 32 is a “simple” table-based lookup of disk sectors, and who (which file) occupies them; think “parking spaces”. FAT32 provides no inherent file security-If you have physical access to an unencrypted FAT32 disk, you can read it.

NTFS “New Technology File System” started appearing in Win NT 3.5 about 1993? It was designed to be an expandable file system, built in competition with IBM’s Hiererical File System for OS/2. NTFS uses “attributes” to determine almost everything for a file: What sector, where it is located—I tend to think of it as a series of “bubbles” defining file allocation. Note that NTFS supports file security (access, logging on, rights, etc), while FAT32 does not.

NTFS started showing up widely in WinNT 4.0, followed by Win2000, then WinXP and Vista.

Tiger & Leopard can perform read-only access on an NTFS volume. You have to go out to third parties for Mac NTFS support.

FAT32 supports a maximum partition size of 4 Terabytes, (4096 GB, 4,194,304 MB) with a maximum file size within a partion of 4.0 GB (actually 3.99).

If you are creating Disk Utility images of Single-Layer DVDs, you can quickly run up against the FAT32 4GB limit.

An attempt to move a large .dmg/.img/.iso/.cdr file from a mac’s OS-X file system to a FAT32 external hard drive may result in a copy failure, with the message “An unknown failure occured”.

Also, Microsoft’s WinNT 4.0 can’t see a FAT32 volume’s contents, while Win98, WinME, and Win2000 can do so.

That way that Microsoft forced their old, loyal WinNT users to “upgrade” to Win2000 to deal with Win98/ME Clients; but I digress.

WinNT 4.0 also required that an NT boot partion be under 4GB, and ideally only 2GB; this was based some internal WinNT “thingies” in initial disk formatting routines, and, on 60GB hard drives being “very large” and unforseen in the year 2000.

Note that most external hard drives use a “default” formatting of FAT 32 for Mac/PC compatibility.

NTFS file size within a volume is almost unlimited, up to the limit of the volume. NTFS has a practical file size (NOT volume size) limit of either 2_TeraBytes, or 4_TeraBytes/file, based on internal structure limits within WinXP.

But again, Tiger/Leopard can’t write to an NTFS volume without third-party help.

One workaround on moving large images form OSX to NTFS is to use an online storage service, like:
xdrive, box.net, dropBoks, eSnips, MediaMax, OmniDrive, or
openomy.com as a net-based storage medium. Copy the big file to the online host, then re-copy it back to the NTFS volume under WinXP or Vista.

Oh, finally a “funny” misnomer on nomenclature:
Apple calls a FAT32 partition an MS-DOS partion, but I’m pretty sure no “normal” realease of MS-DOS (up to and including DOS 6.22) supported a FAT32 partition. To obtain a FAT32-capable “DOS” floppy, you’d have to create an “emergency boot disk” from a Win98 or WinME system. IBM’s PC-DOS 7.0 did support FAT32 under native DOS mode.