Guest Norm Cook Posted October 21, 2007 Posted October 21, 2007 I have a 500GB Iomega USB Drive with about 60GB of files. It is formatted in FAT32. Have heard that NTFS gives better performance, so I am considering using the DOS command convert to switch. Question 1) if I do so, will I lose the files? 2) is it worth it?
Guest Dave Patrick Posted October 21, 2007 Posted October 21, 2007 Re: DOS Convert No, you won't lose data assuming no problems are encountered. Windows 2000 includes the convert.exe utility that allows you to convert to NTFS without any loss of data. The downside to this is you'll end up with 512 byte clusters which is pretty inefficient, slow, and more prone to fragmentation. The overhead of traversing a greater number of clusters to retrieve and commit data will result in a degradation in file system (or disk I/O) performance. From a command prompt; chkdsk to see the cluster size. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/214579/EN-US/ -- Regards, Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup. Microsoft Certified Professional Microsoft MVP [Windows] http://www.microsoft.com/protect "Norm Cook" wrote: >I have a 500GB Iomega USB Drive with about 60GB of files. > > It is formatted in FAT32. Have heard that NTFS gives better > performance, so I am considering using the DOS command > convert to switch. > > Question 1) if I do so, will I lose the files? > 2) is it worth it? > >
Guest JM Posted October 22, 2007 Posted October 22, 2007 Re: DOS Convert "Norm Cook" <normcookNOSPAM@cableone.net> wrote in message news:13hmnkhek6gde9a@corp.supernews.com... > I have a 500GB Iomega USB Drive with about 60GB of files. > > It is formatted in FAT32. Have heard that NTFS gives better > performance, so I am considering using the DOS command > convert to switch. > > Question 1) if I do so, will I lose the files? > 2) is it worth it? As a previous poster pointed out, the cluster size will shrink to 512 bytes. Any performance gain from the NTFS file system will be most undoubtedly lost sue the very small slusters; I'd leave it alone.
Guest John John Posted October 22, 2007 Posted October 22, 2007 Re: DOS Convert Norm Cook wrote: > I have a 500GB Iomega USB Drive with about 60GB of files. > > It is formatted in FAT32. Have heard that NTFS gives better > performance, so I am considering using the DOS command > convert to switch. > > Question 1) if I do so, will I lose the files? > 2) is it worth it? Regarding the 512 byte clusters read here: http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/ntfscvt.php John
Guest Norm Cook Posted October 22, 2007 Posted October 22, 2007 Re: DOS Convert Thanks to all -- think I'll just leave it be. "Norm Cook" <normcookNOSPAM@cableone.net> wrote in message news:13hmnkhek6gde9a@corp.supernews.com... > I have a 500GB Iomega USB Drive with about 60GB of files. > > It is formatted in FAT32. Have heard that NTFS gives better > performance, so I am considering using the DOS command > convert to switch. > > Question 1) if I do so, will I lose the files? > 2) is it worth it? > >
Recommended Posts