Just a few more comments.  As stated, FAT16 is 16 bit.  16 bits (2 to the
16th power) yield 65536 combinations, so FAT16 is a table with only 65536
possible entries.  You have to divide the entire storage space of your disk
into 65536 clusters, meaning, for large disks, you are going to end up with
large clusters, because more disk space is assigned to each table entry in
the FAT.  FAT32, (2 to the 32nd power) has so many possible entries for the
FAT that in practice you could set the cluster size to whatever you want,
the default is 4096 bytes.

Both of these have their own performance issues. This is why we install NTFS
on our windows 2000 notebooks.  The drive can be accessed from a bootable
cd, (you can make bootable diskettes but it seems a real pain, I have never
tried) and the performance difference is undetectable when using a modern,
pentium III class pc.  NTFS is a repairable file system, the only
shortcomings I see are that it is subject to fragmentation, (but so is
fat32) and some popular wizards and tools may not have NTFS versions.  This
doesn't bother me because I use the Microsoft tools. It has been the best
choice for the very large disk drives installed in our notebooks.  As for
the password, we prevent this by creating more than one administrator logon.
That way you have 4 or 5 passwords to forget before you run into trouble!
Its a rule I follow with every system that has administrative rights
restrictions.
Tom Turak

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Rode [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2001 1:11 PM

> >> FAT 16
>>A version of FAT which MS seems to be phasing out, starting with later
>>versions of Win95.  These let you choose between FAT 16 and FAT 32.

>FAT 16 = 16 bit. this was the original offering because DOS is a 16 bit
>operating system. It is still the one FAT that is accessible to any OS and
>I don't see it be phased out any time soon. However it does have some major
>limitations....such as a 2 GB partition size. and cluster size increases
>with partition size.

> >> FAT 32
>>A newer version of FAT which uses larger clusters, thus wasting less disk
>>space.

> >> NTFS
>>One of the Windows NT/2000 file systems.  It is more secure and handles
files
>>more efficiently than FAT.  The NT series can also handle FAT 32.
>>Thank you.
>>David Jonathan Justman.

>NTFS = NT File system.A file system used in Windows NT which uses the
>Unicode character set and allows file names up to 255 characters in
>length.  The NTFS is designed to recover on the fly from hard disk
>crashes.  NTFS is most known for security. NT or Win2k running NTFS can
>provide lock down security at the file level.

>However using NTFS causes a performance hit. Every time the OS accesses the
>hard drive it must perform two extra steps for security purposes. Those
>extra steps take time and that is where the performance hit comes from.

>Another result of the heightened security is that NTFS can NOT be accessed
>from a boot floppy and if you loose your administrative password then you
>have lost the data.

>If you are running a real server or a workstation in a real multi user
>environment then you want to be using NTFS. However if you are running a
>workstation or a server in a home environment it is probably not worth the
>performance hit. At least it isn't to me.

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