Now that Songkran is over for another year and it's safe to carry my laptop to the computer shops in Tukcom, I'm going to replace my 14G HD with either a 40G or 80G HD. Reading an older thread about a slow laptop where one of the solutions was a new 5400rpm HD, one poster remarked to be sure to have it formatted in NTFS not Fat32.

Off I went to Google to learn the difference. Seems that was good advice. However, I am still confused on a couple of points. NTFS can be slower than Fat32 on "smaller" HD's. Are 40 and 80G HD's considered small these days? Also mentioned something about formatting USB thumb drives. Is that necessary after formatting the laptop drive in NTFS?

Will I have any problem sharing files(mp3 and video) with friends whose drives are Fat32, considering I would be using my thumb drives to do so?

Thanks for any help that is offered.

NTFS is quick when set up right - when you format it, you'll be asked a cluster size (blocks). OTOH can't remember which one is better, as the different sizes serve different purposes.

NTFS also offers better security and file permissions, and you'll be able to use files larger than 2GB (a failing of FAT32).

An other problem may by the version of the Bios of your laptop! Some older lap's limited to 32 GB!

Before you buy a new hdd from 40 or even 80 GB, check in the shop that your lap can work with it!

NTFS will be fine and if you want to work with files from a huge size, above 4 GB, you'll need NTFS anyway.

NTFS is fine mate. It's what you want in this day and age. I've configured all my laptop drives (partitions) this way.

As for your thumb drive thing, I am guessing you'll have no issues, but its depends on your O.S.

XP and above generally plugs and plays, so you should be fine.

File sharing, you'll also be fine.

I back up (and often retrieve) files on an external that is (pre-formatted) Fat32 and never had any probs with files or docs (of any size, including music and movies)

NTFS is also better at error recovery than FAT32.

NTFS: Better error recovery. No "check your disk" when you reboot without shutting down. No arbitrary limits on file size and number of files. More security options.

FAT32: Very compatible. Faster with many many small files.

Unless you have a very compelling reason to use FAT32, you should use NTFS.

Unless you have a very compelling reason to use FAT32, you should use NTFS.

I can think of one - and only one - reason to choose Fat32 rather than Ntfs ... If you'll be getting near Linux-OS's: They can read and write Fat32, but can only read (not write) Ntfs.

Unless you have a very compelling reason to use FAT32, you should use NTFS.

I can think of one - and only one - reason to choose Fat32 rather than Ntfs ... If you'll be getting near Linux-OS's: They can read and write Fat32, but can only read (not write) Ntfs.

Already solved with ntfs-3g. We are using it for about half a year now in production environment without any glitches.