The difference between NTFS & FAT?

[Raz]

On my flash thumb drive thing, I can format it in FAT, FAT32 or NTFS. What's the difference? Advantages, disadvantages? Any help, thanks. Honestly I'm clueless about this.

ooh, three hundred posts... ^_^

[Pannonian]

FAT is the subdivision format used by old versions of Windows. It's reasonably efficient up to around 1 GB or something. FAT32 is the version brought in for Windows 98. It is reasonably efficient up to around 4 GB. NTFS is the system brought in for Windows NT, and unlike the other two, it also has a variety of security features, compression options, etc. built in. I can't remember what size partition it can reasonably cope with.

[caravel]

FAT16 has been all but superseded by FAT32. The advantage of formatting your flash drive in FAT32 is that you will be able to plug it into Win9x or UNIX/Linux machines and they will be able to read/write to it straight away. NTFS would be a bad idea Because Win9x cannot read/write to it at all and UNIX/Linux requires special drivers (that are reliable but still in the alpha stage and not everyone will have this installed anyway). Also there is not much gain in using a file system like NTFS on a portable storage device.

[Raz]

Ahh, I see it all now that you two have shed light on the subject. Thanks.