FAT 32 or NTFS ??

[Tim Z]

I am looking at possibly doing a clean re-install of XP Pro on my system. I have heard some say that FAT 32 is still better, and others say that NTFS would be better. I am currently on FAT 32, and recently installed the Diskeeper defrag software. A fellow at the Diskeeper tech support said that their software would work much faster with NTFS. Any reasons not to go with NTFS?

Thanks

Tim

[knightfly]

Tim, if you're networked with any non-NTFS capable OS machines (95,98, ME,) and need them to have access to files on your boot drive, then NTFS won't work. Fat32 machines can't see NTFS partitions. Otherwise, from everything I've read/heard NTFS has a lot of benefits over fat32. Better security, more robust, better disk usage, etc. Since you already have Diskkeeper, you wouldn't have to buy another defragger since most other defraggers won't work on NTFS yet.

People I talk to that use multiple drives on XP machines only use fat32 on drives that other non-NTFS machines need access to. Otherwise, it's NTFS all the way... Steve

[Engramic]

I prefer to stick with fat32, the reason being that if something goes wrong I can still boot from the startup disk and access my files. I can't do this with NTFS. Is there another option I am not aware of?

[Tim Z]

Knightfly, I am not networked with any other machines or drives. Here is my set-up:

-P4 1.6a northwood o/c'd to 2.13
-512 megs Mushkin Level 2 DDRAM
-two 80 gig WD 8 meg cache drives
-LiteON 40/12/40 CD burner
-ASUS 40x read CD Rom drive

Will NTFS work with that set-up?

Tim

[Robert D]

Tim,
Here's an excellent Anandtech article on Fat32 vs NTFS. If you're confident that you will never need Win 98 compatibility with your files, it looks like NTFS is the winner, especially if you want volumes over 32 Gigs, or very large numbers of files. I'm sure you know this, but for audio, don't use any of NTFS's bells and whistles, like compression or encryption. http://www.anandtech.com/guides/viewfaq.html?i=63

Regards, RD

[Tim Z]

Thank Robert, good article. What are you guys using?

Tim

[TeleCarlos]

Just trying to get this straight?

What if your second drive, the one you have all the audio files, masters etc., the one you are not going to erase, is already fat32?

I have a drive with data and audio which I do not plan to erase and is fat32. I guess my only choice if I were to re-install XP is fat32?

Or can I have my drive with the OS in NFTS and the drive with the audio/data/pictures in fat32?

Just trying to learn here!

[Mab]

NTFS and Windows 2000 Pro....solid

[nutsadamus]

Tele,

Yes, for XP and 2K the primary OS partition must be NTFS, but any other partition or physical drive can be either NTFS or FAT32.

One thing to remember, you can always format a FAT32 drive to NTFS without losing data, but can't switch a NTFS drive back to FAT32 without backing up the data somewhere else first.

ANyway Tim, here's another vote for NTFS. No probs here.


[This message has been edited by nutsadamus (edited 09-17-2002).]

[Worm]

Hmmm
I hope You forgive me , but
1) -primary partition (at least in Win2000) can be anything - FAT32 or NTFS.
2) - if you convert from FAT to NTFS , you'll get the cluster size of 512 (i think) kb , and that is not always a good thing for audio drives

[+Erik.+]

I am using NTFS and made a complete conversion ages ago.

NTFS over a computer network certainly does work and the other machines will see the NTFS partitions, as on a network file format is irrelevant. The only time you will have a problem with NTFS is when you are running Win 98/ME on a different partition in the same computer.

There is a very handy util called NTFS for DOS and you can load up a robust driver from the dos prompt (or use it in win 98) to view mount your NTFS partition.

Personally, i keep 1 drive FAT32 with my mounting tool just in case there is a problem but using the win 2000 dos command this is not necessarily needed anymore, just i am more comfortable with it.

NTFS does not fragment as badly as FAT32, so running a defragmentor is really a lot faster on NTFS.

Performance wise you will not notice much in speed performace but you can convert safely knowing that its win 2000/XP's native file format and does provide more security and integrity to your data. Corrupt files are pretty much non existent and scan disk won't run every time you boot up http://www.audioforums.com/forums/wink.gif

[+Erik.+]

Originally posted by nutsadamus:
Tele,


One thing to remember, you can always format a FAT32 drive to NTFS without losing data, but can't switch a NTFS drive back to FAT32 without backing up the data somewhere else first.

(edited 09-17-2002).]

actually this is untrue, you can convert from NTFS back to FAT32 using Partition Magic but you will lose security settings etc. It's not always a clean process though.



[This message has been edited by +Erik.+ (edited 09-18-2002).]

[Lord Wan]

I just installed Visual.Net developpement tools and guess what ... it requires NTFS partition to ensure your PC running as Web server can't be hijacked !
I guess using Fat32 while connected to internet is not safe...

On the other hand, if you use Drive Image to backup your partitions, the day you restore your NTFS system partition, there is about 1 chance out of 3 that NT/Win2000 won't boot anymore. Cause partition number (0-3) is given randomly by the bios when the partition is restored. You have to boot on floppy, then edit boot.ini on your boot partition to reflect the change in number. But this can be done only if the drive is Fat32 !

[Nick Driver]

NTFS-only.

As an old-time Unix nerd who's used journalling filesystems for aeons, I only use NTFS myself. Before W2K and XP came along, I'd pre-format my NT hard drives before installing NT upon them
in a machine already up and running with NT so that I could manually set the cluster size to something bigger than the default 512 byte size to avoid/postpone fragmentation problems on my newly-installed NT boxen's C drives.

[Worm]

Yeah , and (if) once you're past 4K NTFS cluster size , there goes Speedisk

[Dark Phader]

>Any reasons not to go with NTFS?

The only reason not to use NTFS, IMO, is if you are dual booting into Win9x/ME and need to read that partition with both OS's.

I will try to clear up some of the other information and misinformation as well.

>if you're networked with any non-NTFS capable OS machines (95,98, ME,) and need them to have access to files on your boot drive, then NTFS won't work.

This is incorrect. The network becomes the communication channel and none of the systems directly read the other system's drive. The partition's format is transparent and does not come into play at all. Non-NTFS OS's have for years had access to the files on NT servers running solely NTFS.

>I prefer to stick with fat32, the reason being that if something goes wrong I can still boot from the startup disk and access my files. I can't do this with NTFS. Is there another option I am not aware of?

Standard options are "Last Known Good", safe mode, System Restore, and the Recovery Console (http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/reskit/prmc_str_bjap.asp). Third party app - NTFSDOS Pro (http://www.winternals.com/products/repairandrecovery/ntfsdospro.asp).

>Yes, for XP and 2K the primary OS partition must be NTFS, but any other partition or physical drive can be either NTFS or FAT32.

Incorrect. All partitions, within their specifications, can be FAT, FAT32 or NTFS.

> if you convert from FAT to NTFS , you'll get the cluster size of 512 (i think) kb , and that is not always a good thing for audio drives

Actually (and should read FAT32) it's 512 bytes and it's not good for much except reducing slack to an absolute minimum. Performance wise it sucks. Never convert from FAT32 to NTFS.

>Yeah , and (if) once you're past 4K NTFS cluster size , there goes Speedisk

In NT4 and Win2k the disk defragmenter does not operate if your cluster size is greater than 4k. This limitation has been removed in XP (what the original poster is using).

[Tim Z]

Thanks for all the info and mis-info? http://www.audioforums.com/forums/smile.gif

Okay, if I'm getting this right, NTFS would be a good move . . . . right?

If I go to NTFS, I should not change from FAT32 to NTFS. What exactly does this mean? Does it mean since I have had all my files for the past 6 months or so in FAT32, I should never switch to NTFS and use those files? Or does it mean that I should only make the change with a complete clean re-install? I guess I am not sure how I achieve this switch to NTFS from FAT32.

And yes, I am already using XP Pro. I would prefer not to have to do a clean re-install, it it is not required.

Are there any advantages for audio work by switching to NTFS? I was told that Diskeeper will defrag u[p to 5 times faster with NTFS. Since it now takes about 3 hours, 36 minutes would be a nice improvement.

I have two 80 gig drives with about 40 gigs of audio on my E drive, and those same 40 gigs backed up, and all my software, op/s etc. on my C drive. How would I best make this change and not affect all my files? I have way too many files to back up on CDR, and no other way to back-up.

Thanks

Tim

[This message has been edited by Tim Z (edited 09-19-2002).]

[Nick Driver]

Definitely make sure you've got everything backed up before converting http://www.audioforums.com/forums/biggrin.gif

I'd also choose 4096 as cluster size on an 80GB disk. I usually only use 2048 on disks smaller than 40GB. You might also have to wipe that disk clean and reformat it to get a cluster size other than 512 bytes. 512 byte cluster size NTFS filesystems get severely fragmented in a big hurry, pretty much negating the benefit of having NTFS in the first place.

[DjatWork]

NOT CONVERT TO NTFS.

At first place, the NTFS system makes as default Clusters of 4k. Thats perfect for small sized files of any database.

FAT32 makes clusters of 32k in partitions or disks higher than 30 GB. Thats great for large size files, like the AUDIO files.

Bigges clusters size= better disk performance.

A second reason is that NTFS results more fragmented with the same use than FAT32 and for the file system organization, it takes a lot more time to defragment too.

NTFS has many good things for servers, but for a DAW FAT32 is better.
NTFS lets you make files of more than 4GB, but at least that you make hard work with large video files, that won´t be nesessary.

There are a lot more reasons, but this 2 are anough to not moving. (space use, fragmentation, files indexing, old systems compatibilities, etc.)

[+Erik.+]

Originally posted by DjatWork:
NOT CONVERT TO NTFS.

A second reason is that NTFS results more fragmented with the same use than FAT32 and for the file system organization, it takes a lot more time to defragment too.



this is completely wrong. NTFS results in LESS fragmented use then FAT32. My defragmentor totally proves this too.

I think there is a guide at prorec.com but basically it says that there is no performance LOSS or GAIN in using NTFS. It also puts the 4k compared to 32k cluster size at test and also notes no particular performance increase in practise.

The thing to note about cluster size is that it's important to fill the cluster up. If you are filling a 32k cluster with a 1k file you are wasting 31k of disc space! With audio you clusters are always going to be full. In theory a 4k cluster should defragment the drive more then a 32k cluster, but in the NTFS files system the arranging of data is far more efficient (which is why it takes up a little more system ram that FAT32). I've tried testing my drive with different cluster sizes and I am no longer conviced that 32k clusters are essential any more.

i use NTFS for my DAW drives and still i cannot use up all the track count.

Again, Tim, i feel sorry for you because you've got so many conflicting opinions saying the exact opposite of what some say is a benefit and vice versa.

if i was you, copy all your important data to another partition and give it a shot on one partition only! If you don't like it format back to FAT32 and move your data back.

End of story.


[This message has been edited by +Erik.+ (edited 09-20-2002).]

[Dark Phader]

Originally posted by Tim Z:
If I go to NTFS, I should not change from FAT32 to NTFS. What exactly does this mean? Does it mean since I have had all my files for the past 6 months or so in FAT32, I should never switch to NTFS and use those files? Or does it mean that I should only make the change with a complete clean re-install? I guess I am not sure how I achieve this switch to NTFS from FAT32.


When I posted "Never convert from FAT32 to NTFS", I meant by using the convert utility, as it leaves the partition with very small clusters (512 bytes - yuck). I do highly suggest using NTFS but you must reformat the partition to get there. In the case of an XP system or boot partition a reinstallation would be needed. For all other partitions just a reformat (after backing up the data) will do just fine.

For an audio or video partition where almost all the files are huge, slack would be of little concern and I recommend formatting those with NTFS 64k clusters. The larger cluster size will provide the best performance for these big files but would create too much slack (wasted space) on a "normal" use partition which, for most purposes, should use the default cluster size.

You could do a reinstall by placing all of the data you need to save on (apparently) your E: drive. Just don't format the e: drive during the installation. If you're not 100% sure what you're doing just remove the e: drive during the install process to be extra safe.
Then, once you're up and running. copy the data off of the e: drive, then format it.

I would suggest dividing the first disk up into two drives, a 20GB or 30GB system/boot partition and a 60GB or 50GB secondary partition. This will allow for a little more flexibilty.

You can still reformat the audio drive with NTFS 64k clusters without doing anything extra except making sure your data is backed up, leaving the other drive as FAT32. If desired you can make performance comparisons with the two file systems in regards to your specific applications. What performance comparisons wont tell you is that your data is much safer when using the NTFS file system, especially in case of a crash, power loss, etc.


[This message has been edited by Dark Phader (edited 09-20-2002).]

[Tim Z]

Thanks Dark - That is exactly the kind of info that I needed. While I have been a long time recording enthusiast, I am pretty well still a rooky at this PC stuff, but know just enough to be dangerous. http://www.audioforums.com/forums/smile.gif I currently do not have either of my drives partitioned. They are both just 80 gig drives, with one for ops, software and backups, and the other for audio only. What advantages will I get from partioning either drive? I don't really see any? Also do I need something like Partition Magic to do this, or does XP have its own partitioning built in?

Thanks again. I will probably attempt this the first time with the help of my PC tech friend at my side. He builds PCs for a living, but doesn't know a lot about PC's for audio use.

Tim

[+Erik.+]

you need partition magic to do this easily.

or something equivalent

[Dark Phader]

>I currently do not have either of my drives partitioned.

Actually thay are partitioned or you couldn't use them. It's just that they are one big partition instead of several others.

>What advantages will I get from partioning either drive? I don't really see any?

For one, if all of your backed up data that's on your c: drive was on a separate partition and you wanted to reinstall XP, you could do so easily without interfering with the data partition.
Also if you wanted to "image" your system installation by using Ghost, Drive Image, etc. to have a readily available image for emergency purposes it would behoove you to have that smaller 20GB boot partition.
Then the rest of the first drive can be used for backup, other data, a place to keep some archived audio, etc. and can be easily managed as it's on its own drive letter.

Suggest you keep the audio drive all one partition.

>Also do I need something like Partition Magic to do this, or does XP have its own partitioning built in?

All built in, no need for a third party utility.

[Tim Z]

Thanks again man.

So would you suggest that I partition the C: Drive as:

1) Operating System, etc. (say 1 to 5 gigs);
2) Software, programs, misc, (say 20 to 30 gigs); and
3) audio backup files (say 40 to 50 gigs)?

Audio drive leave alone as 80 gig.

Change both drives to NTFS?

Also, could you please direct me to where I could find the partitioning tools in XP?

Does this sound like the right approach - Backup all my C: drive to my E: drive, and then reinstall XP on my C: drive and reformat to NTFS and partition as described above.

Then fly all the backups from E: to C: and then reformat E: to NTFS and transfer files back to E: from C:

FWIW, my second audio drive is E: because I have it as a slave to my C: drive on the primary IDE Port. My secondary IDE Port is my burner and CD ROM as master ans slave, which are D: and F:.

Much appreciated.

[+Erik.+]

Originally posted by Dark Phader:
>[i]

All built in, no need for a third party utility.

where's the partition utility on XP? i would be interested to see this.

On older win systems you had FDISK but its crap as you have to destroy all data to start partitioning and its not so clear to see for beginners.

[+Erik.+]

Originally posted by Tim Z:

So would you suggest that I partition the C: Drive as:

1) Operating System, etc. (say 1 to 5 gigs);
2) Software, programs, misc, (say 20 to 30 gigs); and
3) audio backup files (say 40 to 50 gigs)?

Audio drive leave alone as 80 gig.

Change both drives to NTFS?




I don't quite see why you would want a partition to organise your program files and software. i don't really see any sense in this at all. Possibly if you had two os's running the same software but even at that.... It doesn't provide any speed benefits and its organisation is less apparent because you are making a partition for it. I think you would waste more space then reap any benefits in organisation. Also, if you wipe your C drive you lose the registry data for all the apps on the d: drive so you have to reinstall them anyway!

Why have a 5gb Win XP partition if you are not going to put anything on it??? Makes no sense. 20 - 30 gb for program software?? Jesus. All my software goes on my 3gb audio partition where i set up a swap file of 256mb (i have 512mb of ram).

For programs like sound forge or wavelab etc you would want to set their temporary file cache on your fast audio drive.

Maybe you would like 2 partitions for your audio, 1 for current projects and another for archived projects. This way the time to defragment active projects would be less time.

my partition suggestion would be

1) Operating System, program files (3-5gb)
Set the swap file here and make it fixed

2) Audio backup

Audio drive leave alone as 80 gig or partition into active projects / inactive projects (if it inactive projects are different from the audio storage on drive 1).

Use NTFS on all the drives.

I didn't know XP had partitioning software in it, so forgive me if i am wrong.


Finally, you have the right approach but you are doing the wrong thing in slaving your audio drive to the main IDE drive.

You should do the following

IDE 0 - Main drive / CD ROM
IDE 1 - Audio drive / CD ROM

i know why you have done what you have done, from past threads but it makes no sense to put your two drives together like that.

With IDE you can only read/write to one device at a time on the same chain. So when you are reading/writing to your audio drive and you apps need something from the main drive, the audio drive will stop while the main drive is being retrieved. Of course, it's not as drastic as that , but the OS will keep switching between audio/main/audio/main to read/write to both drives.

If you put the hard discs on a seperate chain this does not happen. You can read/write to both at the same time.

Your cd roms will not slow your hard discs done. Particularly as they are not being in use.

I posted a thread a while ago proving that new motherboards (and i'm talking at least 3-4 years old here) do not have problems with "the slowest device" making the fastest device the same speed.

If this really bothers you do what i did. I bought a PCI IDE card and put both cdroms on that. (i did it because i ran out of free IDE ports).

[This message has been edited by +Erik.+ (edited 09-20-2002).]

[This message has been edited by +Erik.+ (edited 09-20-2002).]

[Tim Z]

Thanks Erik. You have convinced me that I should probably just leave things alone. I just don't know enough about this stuff to risk it. One person says to partition another person says not to. Like I said earlier, I can't see any advantages to partioning my C: drive, especially not at the risk of not knowing what I am doing. You guys work with PC's all the time and have probably done this stuff many times. I have never done it. It just sounds all to risky to me. My system ain't broke, so I'll probably just leave things alone. My main reason for pursuing this was because the guy at Diskeeper tech support said I should be using NTFS, and couldn't believe I was using XP pro and FAT 32. I thought if it wasn't too much hassle, I would switch to NTFS, since it is "apparently" better anyway, and get up to 5 times faster defrags. I think I'll just live with the overnight defrags for now.

The only reason I didn't put my two HD's on separate IDE Ports, was because my cables will not reach, and everyone told me it was a bad idea to use extra long cables. In my box and Mobo, the 18" cables will not reach from the HD's to the CD drives, so I would have to get extra long cables for that.

Thanks for all the thoughts.

TZ

[Dark Phader]

Originally posted by +Erik.+:
where's the partition utility on XP? i would be interested to see this.

Besides the ability to partition during install there's the command line applets, diskpart (fdisk replacement) and format (to format). There's also the GUI interface using Disk Management - right click your "My Computer" icon, select "Manage" then select "Disk Management" under the "Storage" tree.

"Start" > "Help" and a brief inquiry will get you these places as well.

[+Erik.+]

.

[This message has been edited by +Erik.+ (edited 09-21-2002).]

[+Erik.+]

haha, yes that's totally true. I reinstall win xp about once a fortnight and i didn't even bloody think of it!!!

Also, i had no idea you could partition in disk management, i've only used it to set the drive letters. I thought it was just for viewing only!

@Tim

If you are not comfortable doing this partition business then you are right not to. I've been doing my own pc maintenance since 1996 and i certainly didn't get partitioning right first time without screwing up.

You will not really see any peformance increase with by partitioning your drive and you at least have an 2nd drive just for audio. This is the best thing.

While I have gone NTFS, it really wouldn't matter to me if i used FAT32. It's certainly not a "crazy idea".

The main reason i use partition is that my audio pc is also my personal pc, so i have 2 large hard disks and i use 2 OS installations and partition my drive in to data areas. I have everything stored on this PC, so i need to keep it all seperate and it works for me.

best thing to do is practise on another pc totally independant of your work!

I just do this for fun.

Also, about your IDE thing. i had forgotten about that length thing! I have one cable in my tower that is longer then standard size but i am not sure on it's length. It's certainly annoying that standard IDE cables do not reach!!! I don't know of any problems my long cable is causing. Again, if you have no real problems with your machine and you are happy then leave it else just buy on and try it! That's all you can do regardless of all the advice on these forums.




[This message has been edited by +Erik.+ (edited 09-21-2002).]

[Sonic Valley]

Great thread guys...I'm still sorting through it and looking at the whole fat32 -vs- NTFS debate and whether to act on it. Cheers!

[Tim Z]

Originally posted by +Erik.+:

best thing to do is practise on another pc totally independant of your work!

Also, about your IDE thing. i had forgotten about that length thing! I have one cable in my tower that is longer then standard size but i am not sure on it's length. It's certainly annoying that standard IDE cables do not reach!!! I don't know of any problems my long cable is causing. Again, if you have no real problems with your machine and you are happy then leave it else just buy on and try it! That's all you can do regardless of all the advice on these forums.

[This message has been edited by +Erik.+ (edited 09-21-2002).]

Having another PC to practise on would be great, but unfortunately I don't have that luxury. Like you, I do it all on one PC, even though it is primarily set-up for audio/recording. Also, I pretty well have clients/projects on the go all the time, so doing a change like this without really knowing what I am doing, is a bit risky for me. Erik, I sure wish there was someone like you living in my town that I could pay for one on one tutorials on this stuff.

Anyway, I did the switch last night to the longer cables, and noticed no difference. So at least they are working. I now have it C: drive as primary master with CD Burner as the slave, and E: Drive as secondary master with my CD Rom as slave. Seems to work just fine. Just for fun, I opened up some of my current projects in Samplitude, where I knew what the CPU and disk usage was before the change. There was no change at all by switching the drives to separate IDE ports. In fact even if I load up the backup files from my C: drive and run them in Samp (i.e. using only one drive) there is no difference in CPU and disk usage. I am wondering if this dedicated drive (other than for obvious file protection, backup etc.) for audio thing is now obsolete with these faster drives, buss speeds, etc. My machine would easily handle 40+ tracks and plugs all running off my C: drive.

Rather than rush into any more changes at this time, I will do more homework as to how best to back-up and make the changes, and be ready when I feel I need to do my next clean install. Anyone have an old PC they want to throw away for me to practise on. http://www.audioforums.com/forums/smile.gif

That leads to another issue, how do you guys backup all your projects. Doing it on CDR's is simply not doable for me with the size and amount of files. I need to come up with a better backup system and a better way to hand over all the files to the client once the whole project is completed. Currently I tell them they have to purchase a 20 gig, or larger, drive which I will transfer all the wave file and session files to. The only thing is that I have to internally unplug one drive to do that. What are some other ways I can accomplish this?

Take care

Tim

[+Erik.+]

a note on the IDE - i think with things as fast as they are these days that performance increase is pretty much transparent to you, which is a good thing! The theory of having the drives on seperate IDEs is its better, but if you prove it in practise that the performance increase is zilch, it's good too!

One thing you will notice though is the speed of copying from one drive to another! Copying a large file from your audio disc to your other disc should be much much faster.

The reason you will not see so much difference in your work is that using large amounts of ram and fast processors and faster discs the access to the OS disc is not as busy as it used to be in the past when this stuff was an issue. When you have intensive disk use on both drives then you will notice. As it happens you've only got intensive use on 1 drive and minimal use in swapfile and OS/program calls. Imagine how many tracks you could have if you could utilise both discs from Sampiltude (not using a RAID system).

I wouldn't be so tempted to throw away the other drive. I think a secondary drive to someone in your line of work is essential. You might go 10 years without a single disk problem but the one time it goes wrong you'll wish to hell you kept a copy on another physical drive!!!

About your backup problem for clients!!! You are right, doing an album and splitting that over 30 cds is pretty cumbersome. What i do now is exactly that but i use winrar to simply the process. Basically, i rar up all the projects into a single archive and split it at 700mb so there is 1 archive per cd. Use the store function so it doesn't compress, just create a new file. Of course, you will NTFS for this if it goes over 4gb!!! Using my 40x burner i can burn data cds in about 3-4 minutes so an hour to backup isn't that bad!!!

I would suggest investing in a dvd burner. They are coming down in price and you can have about 4.5gb of storage per disk. I do not know how long it takes to burn a dvd disc though and what the speed ratings are. Disks are a lot cheaper now too, generally $2 a pop (in Europe anyway).

Unfortunately, I cannot think of any other storage as cheap as cd/dvd backup these days. 100 cdrs being as low as $30 in price, thats a lot of gb for nothing!

20gb hard drives are also pretty cheap these days so it's hard to offer advice on any other type of storage (bar cd/dvd) because for mb per buck it's unbeatable!

[This message has been edited by +Erik.+ (edited 09-21-2002).]

[DjatWork]

Originally posted by +Erik.+:
this is completely wrong. NTFS results in LESS fragmented use then FAT32. My defragmentor totally proves this too.

I think there is a guide at prorec.com but basically it says that there is no performance LOSS or GAIN in using NTFS.

[This message has been edited by +Erik.+ (edited 09-20-2002).]

Its great, My defragmentor only do its job. Yours has also time for making tests an proove things... great, the tecnology makes big steps...

Do you have 2 EXACTLY same drives with THE SAME information?

I had made many laboratories tests and I can tell you that FAT32 results less fragmented, and takes less time to be desfragmented.

4k or 32k clusters?
the tests I had made gave me between 10% and 30% of extra performance with 32K clusters.

You can check that in the TASCAM web page too...

If you "think" that there is a guide in somewhere please first check it, because some people can make the mistake of taking what you say if you were sure about that.
I´m really tired about the people that writes just for wasting time and making their "opinion" important.

Its so easy write things in a open forum, so please be specific qhen you write them...

The others, who are reading this please, have in mynd that this is only a forum.

May be nowone knows anything here. Even me, so try to don´t get the OPINIONS you read here as if they were truths.
Search in the web for documents and have your own conclusions.

Of course, is easier just reading here...

DJATWORK!

[DjatWork]

Originally posted by +Erik.+:

Also, about your IDE thing....I have one cable in my tower that is longer then standard size but i am not sure on it's length...I don't know of any problems my long cable is causing.
[This message has been edited by +Erik.+ (edited 09-21-2002).]

Ultra ATA 100 requires STANDARD cables, with 40 pins and 80 conductor. The lenght must be between 10 and 19 inches.

DJATWORK!

[Tim Z]

Originally posted by DjatWork:
Ultra ATA 100 requires STANDARD cables, with 40 pins and 80 conductor. The lenght must be between 10 and 19 inches.

DJATWORK!

Well I'm using Ultra ATA100 cables that are between 24 & 30 inches, and they are working just fine. So your choice of word "must" is incorrect. If "must" was true, then it wouldn't be working properly for me would it.

In my case, I have no choice but to use the longer cables or get a new mobo and tower.

TZ

[+Erik.+]

@Dj

look dude, i know what i've seen with defragging NTFS again FAT32 on many different systems. If you are made laboratory tests then i can only get on my knees and salute your scientific wisdom. Maybe Steve Gibson will give you a job if you ever end up out of work in your company.

As for cluster sizes, on drives today i found your claim of 10-30% performance increase an exaggeration made just to try and prove your point with nothing more then words. If the performance increase was that much then I would be saying the same thing.

Your third brag about the IDE cable length just proves my point that you are trying to disprove anything i say now. If i have non-standard length cables and so does Tim and we don't have any visible performance decrease or file transfer errors on my drive then the fact remains you've probably just picked up this info from some source on the net and you are regurgitating without testing yourself. But then i guess as you work in a tech lab you probably have.

Don't turn this into a war of words, the idea is to help people and am trying to help people on the basis of what i have tested and used over my professional and personal life using PC's for more the word processing and mp3 playback.

I also have seen a lot of myths on these pages that annoy me and i try to correct them with being accusing, derogatory or obstenate.

What may have once been true 5-10 years ago regarding hard disc performance and criteria for maximising speed and transfer is no longer a mandatory thing anymore. I don't profess to know everything about harddiscs and transfer systems but i know enough for audio work.

I suggest that if people want to know whats the best performance that they just try it and test it because when they come here all they end up getting is a conflict of opinion and that's of no help. Most newbies or less inexperinced people probably end up more confused.

So, if you are not sure if NTFS or FAT32 is faster at defragging. Suck it and see - try it! Those cables just too darn long, must be causing a lot of errors transmitting over such a long distance - just try it, all you are gonna lose is a few bucks! Go ahead and convert those clusters! If 32k gives you a 30% performance increase that's great! post up your results.

On both my DMA 66 20gb IDE and DMA 100 40gb IDE I have found no noticeable speed increase using FAT32 / 32K clusters against XP's NTFS using 4k. So i went with NTFS, i noticed that on my system the defrag goes a lot faster for all of my data types! I have large audio files, movie files, tiny data files, programs, the lot! For me it's better. It's not just the defragger i use to test my drives but other third party benchtesting software.

I am an avid reader of Sound On Sound and in that magazine the article i read stated that the tester found absolute minimal performance increase in using FAT32/32k against NTFS so he said that it was really down to personal choice, and i found that statement to be true.

If your fastest audio drive is a 10mb PIO MODE 1 that transfers at about a half a mb a second then i would say using all of what Djwhatshisname recommends is gonna be absolutely true.

[This message has been edited by +Erik.+ (edited 09-24-2002).]

[+Erik.+]

i asked a friend of mine who is an engineer at IBM.

He had the following the to say: -

1> NTFS should defragment less, and will therefore seem quicker. If both formats are fragmented to the same level (say 50%), then FAT32 will be quicker. This is PURELY due to cluster size.

2> 10%-30% on modern ATA drives seems VERY excessive. Maybe he's running an old pentium? There IS an overhead with file access on NTFS drives. This is because it has to check file permissions for the current user before accessing the file. Note that this doesn't affect defragging as that is DRIVE level access, not FILE level. Personally, I feel that the extra security/stability of NTFS more than outweighs the slight overheads, which are completely negligible on modern systems with fast cpus, busses & hds & lots of ram.

In short, I think either
A) he's full of **** ,
B) he's using older tech, or tech without a proper spec to be using NTFS anyway,
or
C) when he tried NTFS he either set it up wrong, or got virused or something. There is more that affects performance than just format type.

OR

D) He's using SiSoft Sandra as his benchmark tool. LOL.

Seriously, however, I personally have noticed no decrease in performance from my p3-650/256Mb/2x20GbATA100 system since I converted ALL my drives to NTFS when I installed xp. (Previously on the boot partition was NTFS with 2k). Oh - except the linux partitions of course.

[Dark Phader]

>NTFS should defragment less, and will therefore seem quicker. If both formats are fragmented to the same level (say 50%), then FAT32 will be quicker. This is PURELY due to cluster size.

I think you meant "should fragment less", although a case could be made for the converse.
For the same size partition the default cluster size of FAT32 is greater than the default cluster size of NTFS. However, the default cluster size does not have to be used. When formatting a drive for AV use I always suggest NTFS @ 64k clusters which is greater than the 32k FAT32 cluster size default for greater than 32GB partitions. Which would make the defrag faster for NTFS, if cluster size is the only criteria.

>10%-30% on modern ATA drives seems VERY excessive.

I assume you're referring to DjatWork's "4k or 32k clusters?
the tests I had made gave me between 10% and 30% of extra performance with 32K clusters."

It's possible that this is not an apples to apples comparison and that he was comparing NTFS @ 4k clusters to FAT32 @ 32k clusters - the default cluster sizes for the respective file systems on partitins greater than 32GB.
Plus if one is dealing with huge files, like those used in AV work, these numbers sound spot on to me. I suggest your friend did not have all of the data.

At any rate it is certainly not necessary to accept the default cluster size when using NTFS and there are advantages to larger cluster sizes (less overhead) when using huge AV type files. The solution is to simply format that partition with a larger cluster size (hint: try NTFS @ 64k).
I agree with your friend when he states: "I feel that the extra security/stability of NTFS more than outweighs the slight overheads", and add that with the proper cluster size there may possibly be no performance hit whatsoever.

[+Erik.+]

thanks for your contribution in this, maybe it will help settle the thread down!

"the default cluster sizes for the respective file systems on partitins greater than 32GB.
Plus if one is dealing with huge files, like those used in AV work, these numbers sound spot on to me. I suggest your friend did not have all of the data"

i told him it was regarding audio work. hence i've only made my tests on FAT32/NTFS based on what i use it for - audio work. If I had seen a 10%-30% increase in the speed of audio files or found i even got 5-20% more tracks then i would say so. I say that for normal, fairly heavy duty audio work that this increase is an exaggeration.

[Dark Phader]

>I say that for normal, fairly heavy duty audio work that this increase is an exaggeration.

Which is it, "normal", or "fairly heavy duty"? Are you taking into account that he is probably comparing NTFS @ 4k to FAT32 @ 32k and not NTFS to NTFS or FAT32 to FAT32? Also note that various degrees of fragmentation will alter the results quite substantially. Unless someone can show proof to the contrary I'm willing to take him at his word.

[rsl1]

Dumb question- How do I change cluster sizes on NTFS from 4 to 32 ,PM will not not do this.(I have both my drives NTFS ,I am keeping the c drive 4k I just want to change my audio drive) Thanks Bob

[+Erik.+]

darkphader,

i don't see anyone proofing anything here other then some theory and to say that you only take someone's else word because you agree with the theory indicates to me that you have not indeed ran very many tests on this yourself. why don't you have a go and show me thist 10-30% increase because i don't see it.

I'm not going to prove anyone wrong, i am basing my opinion on what i've tried for myself for audio work, not video work or network server work.

i run 64+ audio tracks and I know in my tests that FAT32 4k vs FAT32 32k vs NTFS 4k on a defragmented drive, the results are barely indifferent to each other.

I haven't tested NTFS with higher clusters but i will do.

My argument isn't that smaller clusers sizes make no difference or that 1 format is superior to the other. Just that in my use and tests I find no clear advantage. I know the theory but in my practise I cannot see any clear winner to really make this worth worrying about.

the fact less defragmentation appears on all my drives (on different data types) using NTFS against when it used to be FAT32 means my defragger completes more quickly. To say it's faster at defragging NTFS i've been told its wrong, its just because there is less fragmentation.

one more thing about using the tascam webpage to go proving this stuff is that they (and on steinberg optimisation guides) still recommend the swap file being set to 1.5 x the amount of physical ram, which with DAW's of 512MB and 1gb of ram, this seems ludicrous. In the old days this was true when dealing with smaller ram sizes. It indicates to me that neither company are that serious about updating their optimisation guides, probably because the hardware is so much faster now then it was 5 years ago when this stuff was a serious issue.

A friend of mine also into music software runs no partitions and hardly ever defrags. he's got all his **** on one drive from games to the internet to god knows what. He doesn't optimise his system at all and still it's running pretty good (on XP). To me this is horrific and no doubt to most people reading this thread but the fact remains he still gets high performance and what he needs from it.



[This message has been edited by +Erik.+ (edited 09-24-2002).]

[Dark Phader]

>i run 64+ audio tracks and I know in my tests that FAT32 4k vs FAT32 32k vs NTFS 4k on a defragmented drive, the results are barely indifferent to each other.

But have you tried this with badly fragmented drives?

Yes, I haven't all of the file systems and cluster sizes under all conditions but I still think that the claim made of a 10-30% improvement could be valid depending on the circumstances.

[Dark Phader]

Originally posted by rsl1:
Dumb question- How do I change cluster sizes on NTFS from 4 to 32 ,PM will not not do this.(I have both my drives NTFS ,I am keeping the c drive 4k I just want to change my audio drive) Thanks Bob

Easiest is to use Disk Management (see earlier in the thread), in NT4 use "format" from a command prompt, as Disk Manager wont do it.

[This message has been edited by Dark Phader (edited 09-24-2002).]

[+Erik.+]

But have you tried this with badly fragmented drives?
[/B]

why would i want to do that? i think this is going nowhere now. I think under certain circumstances any one of use could be right but i don't think that's how this argument got started.

it's not a competition here. I'm happy to be proved wrong and learn new stuff i'm also even more happy to get 1/3 extra performance from such an easy process as changing cluster size (which i will indeed do).

The funny thing about fragmented drives is that for a one off test if my data was arranged in a particular way just down to luck I could prove that fragmented drives boosted performance.

Consider that the defragmentation process orders a single file so the disk head can be streamed in a continous run therefore improving read performance (in theory). In a multi track environment the ideal situation is to have fragments of each track placed in such a way that the drive head still moves in a continous line thus reading many tracks at the same time. This would lead to a theory that defragmenting files actually causes more work on the drive head from having to dart back and forth collecting each track. My point with this is that I could indeed prove any file format to be more efficient under this set condition.

I still stand that this is not so much an argument about file formats and defragmentation anymore because each one of us here can lay claim to some test or another to prove a theory. For something so trival as changing cluster size try it and see. Just do what works for you.

Apoligies to DjatWork for my tone in the above threads but i took a bit of offense at the way you gave your replies to my subsequent threads and put me in the category of distrubing false information across internet forums. Something i've also accused other people of in the past. I also hate to see false info spread and do my best to stop it as i see fit.

Its possible there are clear advantages to certain file formats, cluster sizes depending on your personal computer, the way you work and the type of files you work with.

I also maintain that in my personal experience only that i have found negligible improvement using different formats and clusters sizes. For this reason I say go with what you are ok with. I don't think its fair to say "defintely don't choose NTFS for audio work" or "FAT32 is clearly a worse format for audio work". I don't think it's a fair statement.

[This message has been edited by +Erik.+ (edited 09-24-2002).]

[Dark Phader]

Originally posted by +Erik.+:
...but i took a bit of offense at the way you gave your replies to my subsequent threads and put me in the category of distrubing false information across internet forums.

Sorry you took something the wrong way but that was not my intent. I fight against misinformation as well, and if I'm wrong I enjoy what I learn from my mistakes. Anybody can be wrong or make a mistake; but I wouldn't put you in the category of flaunting bad info for fun and profit.

No need to argue about what was reported. I accept it at face value, you don't. We don't have the same gear under the same conditions with the same data being accessed by the same programs. It's really kind of pointless at this juncture.

[DjatWork]

Originally posted by +Erik.+:
@Dj

As for cluster sizes, on drives today i found your claim of 10-30% performance increase an exaggeration made just to try and prove your point with nothig more then words.

[This message has been edited by +Erik.+ (edited 09-24-2002).]

If you really think that, so don´t miss your time givving me explainations.

And if you don believe me, it´s not my problem. Check it out in the TASCAM web site, if you think that they won´t lie to you.

DJATWORK!

[DjatWork]

Originally posted by Tim Z:
Well I'm using Ultra ATA100 cables that are between 24 & 30 inches, and they are working just fine.



Tim... Let me tell you that "just fine" is not like "Ultra ATA 100"...

Shorter or larger cables makes the data transfer slower. May be that still enough for your need.

DJATWORK!

[DjatWork]

Originally posted by +Erik.+:
i asked a friend of mine who is an engineer at IBM.



Please, stop this...
I´m sure that "your friend" does not work with 50 tracks with real time effects. He doesn´t even know that it´s possible.

My work consists in configure PCs for Audio and Video hard working. They paid me for that, and come back with another PCs to make the same work. I hadn´t tell it before, just because I tought that all the people around this forum was responsable on what they say and what they know, and if anyone write something here, is because he really knows what is writting.

I make "after-before" tests to ALL the PCs that I PERSONALLY configure.

All the PC has their own limit. You can make things to move that limit a little bit far away.
Having bigger clusters size, put that limit away. Thats only one thing...there are anothers.

May be you have a PC and make a work on it far away its limit, and you don´t notice any difference changing from NTFS to FAT32 or wathever.

The only thing that I´d like to say is that is not good giving advices basing only on the own experience with the own PC.

You should not said "NTFS is less defragmented than FAT32, my defragmenter proove it". or things like that. That doesn´t sound believable, or serious.

I have no really time to start discussions to prove who is right or not. I read almost all the posts here, but I only answer were I really know what I´m answering. Thats beyond different opinnions.

This is an user forumn only, but some people make desicions on the post here, so please be carefull on what we all say and recommend.

I allways say this... get the opinions here, but always get trully an trusty information. At least on the web. Read, learn and get your own conclusions.

DJATWORK!

[Tim Z]

Originally posted by DjatWork:
Tim... Let me tell you that "just fine" is not like "Ultra ATA 100"...

Shorter or larger cables makes the data transfer slower. May be that still enough for your need.

DJATWORK!



Okay, let's assume that you are correct. Where would I notice this slower transfer? I was using shorter cables before, but I had to have both Hard Drives on one IDE Port and both CD Rom and CD Burner on the other IDE Port. In order for me to have the two drives on separate IDE Ports, I have no choice but to use longer cables. So I have used it both ways (i.e short cables like you suggest, and longer than 24" cables) I am working in Samplitude 6.04 with 24 to 36 track mixes with lots of reverb, compression, multiband, EQ, etc. There is absolutley no change at all in my CPU usage in either set-up. So I ask again . . . . . where am I going to notice this slower transfer rate? Have you actually done tests yourself and measured the difference? Have you noticed a reduction in track count or plug-in usage? As far as I am concerned I have tested it with my set-up and there is no difference when using short or long cables and there is no difference with both hard drives on one IDE Port vs separate ports. Don't take this the wrong way, but sometimes I think you guys spend too much time worrying about minute technical details that really make very little or no difference, instead of making music.

Cheers

TZ


[This message has been edited by Tim Z (edited 09-24-2002).]

[+Erik.+]

yeah tim, that's what i've been trying to say. it's interesting to note djatwork has the time to build up so many pc's and do before and after tests on clusters sizes and fileformats for each one! That's dedication.

I also think Djatwork isn't reading a damn thing i write because he's still arguing about the same **** i've tried to lay to rest. I've made all his points in his last few posts so i suggest he read through my last few threads again.

Also my defragmentor does not benchtest, i never said that, but it certainly shows how fragged the drive is and there's something called a -um -a oh yeah A CLOCK which shows just how long it's taken to defrag. And i've seen the difference in NTFS and FAT32 at different cluster sizes in this!


My friend at IBM might not know about audio work but he sure as hell knows about hard discs and file formats. I do know about audio work though as i use it a lot!

If you want to win this thing dj, it's fine. You win. I'm not saying another word in this thread.

I think Dark Phader maybe gets my point but i think Djatwork is far too obsessed with his own sense of importance to worry about what anyone else has to say.



[This message has been edited by +Erik.+ (edited 09-25-2002).]

[+Erik.+]

ok i read the tascam guide and it states two things of importance.

1. You are unlikely to see a major performance difference between the two

2. Defragmenting is substantially quicker in FAT32

So i think the 10%-30% performance increase is unlikey.

I don't base my judgements from personal experience on 1 system, i've had many different combinations of different hardware over the years.

So as i've already stated NTFS becomes fragmented less but if the same fragmentation occurs 50-50 against the two formats FAT32 is quicker.

i don't really think you've read much of what this thread is about, you've just scanned it and pulled out certain parts you don't agree with it.


[This message has been edited by +Erik.+ (edited 09-25-2002).]

[DjatWork]

Originally posted by Tim Z:
As far as I am concerned I have tested it with my set-up and there is no difference when using short or long cables and there is no difference with both hard drives on one IDE Port vs separate ports.
(edited 09-24-2002).]

Thats OK for you in that case. If at any time you note that you are experiencing anything wrong, so test whats happens with a "standard" cable. Until that, use the cable lenght you need.
MAy be you can change the disks order inside your box, and connect them with a sandard cable.

About IDE ports, you will sure note diferences when mooving big information between disks, like "copy/paste" or "cut/paste" large files.

In all cases there are diferences, but you probably dont notice about them, because you are not getting any visible error consecuence.

An example:
The S/Pdif cable must be a coaxial 75ohms cable, with certain carachteristics and bla bla bla...

If you use a simple audio cable, it will also work, but with some consecuences.
You may be listen or not. but you can´t say that is the same, only because it seems to.

For my girlfriend a guitar and a bass are "the same things"... but are they?

DJATWORK!



[This message has been edited by DjatWork (edited 09-25-2002).]

[DjatWork]

Erik...
You know what?
you are boring me.

I´m here just to give my best, and get the best from others.

You certainly don´t know anything about hard disks and file systems. So you are in the incorrect topic.

I know what my works let me know, and I´m trying to help the people who want´s to decide about one or another option.

I learn a lot in this forum and in anothers about a lot of things that I don´t know, but when I don´t know, I simply READ, or ASK, not WRITE.

Simple as that.

Let me know your point...because I can´t find it.

A person asked what to go for, FAT32 or NTFS.

I gave in a simple and short post the reasons to get one of those, with a cluster size.

Then you had a problem with that. I´m not here to proove anything so I told you to go to TASCAMs guide.

You read it all, and confirm that what I originally posted was correct.

My work consists in PC configuration for Audio and Video, so I HAVE to make tests to make the clients know what we did on their computers. Whats your problem on that? its simply my job.

AGAIN...
WHATS YOUR POINT?

Anybody else is reading this... this topic had became useless...

Please, if you want to continue this, mail me, anybody else has no reason to read this...

DJATWORK




[This message has been edited by DjatWork (edited 09-25-2002).]

[DjatWork]

FAT32 or NTFS?

I would reccommend you FAT32 with 32k cluster size.

Why?
At first place, the NTFS system makes as default Clusters of 4k. Thats perfect for small sized files of any database.

FAT32 makes clusters of 32k in partitions or disks higher than 30 GB. Thats great for large size files, like the AUDIO files.

Biggest clusters size= better disk performance.

A second reason is that NTFS results more fragmented with the same use than FAT32 and for the file system organization, it takes a lot more time to defragment too.

NTFS has many good things for servers, but for a DAW FAT32 is better.
NTFS lets you make files of more than 4GB, but at least that you make hard work with large video files, that won´t be nesessary.

There are a lot more reasons, but this 2 are anough to not moving. (space use, fragmentation, files indexing, old systems compatibilities, etc.)

DJATWORK!

[+Erik.+]

there's too many wholes in your story, i've found you email so i will contact you.

you say "larger cluster = bigger disk performance"

which i agree on in theory.

why aren't use using NTFS 64k or FAT32 64k clusters?

Why are you comparing NTFS 4K to FAT32 32K? Why not NTFS 32K to FAT32K?

What has default got to do with anything? We are trying to optimise, so default settings don't matter.

[This message has been edited by +Erik.+ (edited 09-26-2002).]

[+Erik.+]

actually Dj, i may agree with you on using longer cables after all.

On my previous motherboard I had problems copying very large files from 1 drive to another. It either took a very long time or didn't finish at all.

Interestingly, i haven't had the same problem on my new motherboard (NFORCE 420 chipset) but i haven't gauged the speed of large file transfers with shorter cables either.

[Tim Z]

After every session I back up my E drive to my C drive, which is between 30 and 40gigs of transfer. There is NO change in the time it takes to copy from one drive to the other with the longer cables. There is also no change in the time it takes by having the Audio drive on a second IDE port. So far, I have noticed no change for any of my PC uses.

Tim

[+Erik.+]

that's cool because i only noticed it as a problem on my last motherboard.

i think it's ridiculous the IDE ports are at the other end of the board these days. Seems there's a lot of people with this problem. It's quite a design flaw in my opinion and it's obvious it cannot be easily corrected. I've also got a PCI card in my machine now just for running the two cd writers so the cable length isn't such an issue for me.

[DjatWork]

Originally posted by Tim Z:
There is NO change in the time it takes to copy from one drive to the other with the longer cables. There is also no change in the time it takes by having the Audio drive on a second IDE port.
Tim

Are you using 80 conductors cables?

[Tim Z]

Originally posted by DjatWork:
Are you using 80 conductors cables?



Yes, I don't think you can get ATA100 cables that aren't 80 pin. Anyway, they are definitely ATA100 80 pin cables. Blue goes to the mobo, grey to the master and black to the slave.

TIm

[Dark Phader]

Originally posted by Tim Z:
[B] Yes, I don't think you can get ATA100 cables that aren't 80 pin. Anyway, they are definitely ATA100 80 pin cables. Blue goes to the mobo, grey to the master and black to the slave.

Actually that depends on the cable. Some cables have the grey and black connectors reversed. So to be sure, the blue to the mobo, the other end to the master and the middle to the slave.

[Tim Z]

Originally posted by Dark Phader:
So to be sure, the blue to the mobo, the other end to the master and the middle to the slave.

That is only required when running "cable select". If you set your device pins as Master & Slave, then you can connect either the black or grey to either master or slave. The only constant is that the blue MUST go to the mobo. I have connected them both ways, and it makes NO difference at all.

There is no-where in town here that sells anything other than 16" and 30" ATA100 cables. The only way I could get anything in-between is to have them custom made. Everyplace I have talked to says it will not make any noticeable difference if my system is working properly now, which it is. 16" cables definitely will NOT reach in my system, so I am using 30" cables, with no problems whatsoever.

You guys need to be more careful when you give advice at these forums. A lot of the time advice is given on hearsay and rumours. Unless you can back up the info with facts, you can really screw some people up with this advice. Look at the advice I have been getting from some of my recent posts here . . . . . totally apples and oranges. I have decided that my system is working at an optimum now, regardless of many saying it should not, with 30" cables, two drives on the same IDE port, MS office installed, etc. etc. I am getting GREAT DAW performance as it is.

I have decided it is time to put all this technical jargon aside, and get on with making music.

FWIW

TZ

[Dark Phader]

Originally posted by Tim Z:
You guys need to be more careful when you give advice at these forums. A lot of the time advice is given on hearsay and rumours. Unless you can back up the info with facts, you can really screw some people up with this advice.

I stand by that advice, it comes directly from Intel face-to-face training, as well their documentation. It is not rumour.

[Dark Phader]

Originally posted by Tim Z:
If you set your device pins as Master & Slave, then you can connect either the black or grey to either master or slave

BTW, I do agree that with two drives that is the case. The problem with tying the master to a specific colored connector is that someone will be tempted to blindly follow that incorrect advice and end up with the lone master drive in the middle of the chain, which is a problem. Following the "master at the end" advice eliminates this problem and works in both one and two drive properly set up scenarios.

[DjatWork]

Originally posted by Tim Z:
You guys need to be more careful when you give advice at these forums. A lot of the time advice is given on hearsay and rumours. Unless you can back up the info with facts, you can really screw some people up with this advice.


The only one here who is ASKING is YOU, and the only one here that is speaking ONLY for the OWN experience is you, so please...

It is so easy just tell everyone what happens in your own PC. That is a PARTICUULAR CASE.

I work on it, and I make tests all the time, and plus I try to be near the Tech support people of many manufacturers and read all the heavy documents I can, to have always the best information. and PLUS i´m a DAW USER.

PLease, you HAVE to know that if I tell you something is because I REALLY know that IT IS like I told you, for the UNIVERSAL cases.

That does not means that could be exceptions, or that may be there are another things that you are not telling us about your PC, and might be important to give you any advice...

If I had your computer for a day, I´m sure that I could help you more, but this is only a forum, so we do all we can.

And if you don´t like it, please DONT ASK ANYMORE.

You can also read in MANY answers I had given, that I told people to GO AND READ THE MANUALS THEMSELVES, or ASK THE TECH SUPPORT OF THEIR HARDWARE to be really sure about their problem.

I also remember all the time I can that this is only a forum, and no one can be sure about avery word I´m writing (like everyone here), is true or not, so you should LOOK FOR INFORMATION, READ, STUDY AND LEARN...

Of course is easy to came here and make a question in 2 minutes of your life...

Thats your desicion, and your responsability, and if you receive BAD ADVICES, like a lot of advices around here, then is YOUR PROBLEM.

So, what you thought it was?

God isn´t the moderator of this forum!
we are only people!

DJATWORK!

[wezx]

(FAT32 or NTFS?
I would reccommend you FAT32 with 32k cluster size.

Why?
At first place, the NTFS system makes as default Clusters of 4k. Thats perfect for small sized files of any database.

FAT32 makes clusters of 32k in partitions or disks higher than 30 GB. Thats great for large size files, like the AUDIO files.

Biggest clusters size= better disk performance.

A second reason is that NTFS results more fragmented with the same use than FAT32 and for the file system organization, it takes a lot more time to defragment too.

NTFS has many good things for servers, but for a DAW FAT32 is better.
NTFS lets you make files of more than 4GB, but at least that you make hard work with large video files, that won´t be nesessary.

There are a lot more reasons, but this 2 are anough to not moving. (space use, fragmentation, files indexing, old systems compatibilities, etc.)

DJATWORK!)


This ENTIRE post is completely plagarized from an article found elsewhere on the net. The article is a couple of years old...that's why he doesn't mention higher cluster sizes for NTFS...btw what's up with the grammar/English problem?

[mrmoviescore]

I have do agree & Disagree.

If your using Win2k or Winxp then use NTFS for all your Drives.

But format the OS/Apps Partition as NTFS 4k.

And Format the Audio Partition as NTFS 64 k

you can choose the cluster size for the audio partition after installed the OS and going to Contol Panel --> Admininistrator Tools --> computer management --> Local Disks.

NTFS is the native File system of Win2k/XP and these OS's will work better.