file system question

[haus_kat]

My computer C drive is NTFS but I notice that the Sandisk SD cards are FAT when I checked. Why would the cards be FAT instead of NTFS? I'm just curious. Is one better than the other? Should I reformat the cards to NTFS?

[Broni]

Those cards are formatted in FAT, because it's wider recognized format, including Mac.
Yes, you can format the card in NTFS.

[haus_kat]

thanks would changing the format affect the rate that it recorded files to and from the card?

[Broni]

Nothing there, which would bother you.
More info: http://www.ntfs.com/ntfs_vs_fat.htm

[patio]

You will lower the lifespan of your flash drive units by formatting them NTFS...
However carry on.....

[quaxo]

A lot of devices cannot read NTFS file systems as well (ex. some mobile phones, MP3 players, cameras, etc.). Most of them are designed to read FAT only, so formatting it as NTFS would result in your device most likely not being able to read it. You can always try it, and if it doesn't work, format it back to FAT. But as Patio said...

You will lower the lifespan of your flash drive units by formatting them NTFS...
However carry on.....

As for transfer rates, you probably wouldn't have a noticeable difference with FAT or NTFS. However, if you're experiencing very slow transfer rates directly to your device (like if you plug your camera/phone/MP3 player directly into the computer and try to transfer files that way), it might be worth purchasing a USB card reader instead, as they tend to read and transfer information a lot faster than plugging the device in and trying to copy to/from the card. Card readers are quite cheap as well.

[haus_kat]

Thanks for the info I only use the cards with a card reader on the computers, just to transfer files between computers.

[Broni]

If so, and with 15 bucks per 8GB USB stick, you can even use "Broni" format

[haus_kat]

You will lower the lifespan of your flash drive units by formatting them NTFS...
However carry on.....

Just curious, but how does it make them last less long?

[Broni]

If it was $1,000 drive, you could probably worry about it...
http://www.sudhian.com/index.php?/forums/viewthread/98238/

as opposed to FAT or FAT32, NTFS MFT doesn’t have a static location which may mean that writes could be more dispersed [...]NTFS tracks a lot more information and statistics as opposed to FAT32 and especially FAT, which may translate to an increased number of writes and a shorter life span

[BC_Programmer]

not to mention, the fact, that the MFT and volume bitmap consume a greater portion of the disk- that NTFS cannot practically be optimized for quick removal, and that sometimes even XP/Vista machines get confused when you plug in a device using NTFS that also identifies itself as a removable device and you have a recipe for the RAW format in a far shorter time then with FAT.

[Broni]

Oh, I didn't know that

[BC_Programmer]

heh, personal experiments with NTFS on some of my removable drives.
Less the stellar results- went back to FAT32.

the main reason, I'd say, is because NTFS is more or less for fixed disks, that can't suddenly vanish. Of course so is fat32 and fat16- they just happen to, ironically, be more resilient against the type of missing data that quick removal results in.

NTFS, is a far better file system- with all it's logs and so forth, as well as the ability that it has to "roll back" changes by looking at the change journal.

but- it's more or less geared at when a disk write error occurs, such as, in the case of a bad sector. In that case it can either roll back the change entirely (of course the program is alerted to the I/O error) or, in most circumstances, NTFS will then allocate a new sector for that data transparently, and the driver will log an event on the event viewer.

FAT32, while as we've all seen is not immune to the whole "RAW" issue, is easier to optimize for quick removal at the file system driver level- NTFS has all these checks and balances, and logs, and so forth, but at the same time these things are part of the filesystem itself- fat32 don't care. it just has it's little allocation table and the data and it's happy as a clam. So the driver/OS can cache the data as it wishes ("optimize for performance") or simply vomit the data immediately (Optimize for quick removal). These same options exist for NTFS drives; IE, the same log writes, journal writes, changes to file data, etc, are cached by the USB driver, whereas NTFS is expecting that the data is written right away and performing it's own optimizations; this is why, even those it would seem counter-intuitive, NTFS is actually worse for quick removal then FAT32, since the NTFS driver has no control over how data is written to a "quick-removal" optimized device, there is no guarantee that the transaction log and the data correspond.

heh, sorry to ramble there. I'm not even, 100% sure if thats correct, but I think I read a article somewhere, about this.

[quaxo]

If so, and with 15 bucks per 8GB USB stick, you can even use "Broni" format

Isn't that the one that crashes constantly and isn't worth a <censored>? 

[BC_Programmer]

Isn't that the one that crashes constantly and isn't worth a <censored>? 

Better then the BCFS format, which constantly berates you with peanut butter recipes and unrelated anecdotes, immediately before apologizing for misplacing some of your personal data "accidentally" on a public web server.
It then extends apologies by offering a cheese drink, which it actually cannot provide.