File System Selection

Another factor that determines your disk-partitioning scheme is the type of file system you use.

Windows XP Professional supports three file systems:

_ File Allocation Table (FAT16)

_ FAT32

_ New Technology File System (NTFS)

The following sections briefly describe these three file systems.

FAT16

FAT16 (originally just FAT) is the 16-bit file system widely used by DOS and Windows 3.x. FAT16

tracks where files are stored on a disk using a file allocation table and a directory entry table.

The disadvantages of FAT16 are that it only supports partitions up to 2GB and it does not

offer the security features of NTFS. The advantage of FAT is that it is backward compatible, which

is important if the computer will be dual-booted with another operating system, such as DOS,

Unix, Linux, OS/2, or Windows 3.1. Almost all PC operating systems read FAT16 partitions.

FAT32

FAT32 is the 32-bit version of FAT, which was first introduced in 1996 with Windows 95,

with OEM (original equipment manufacturer) Service Release 2 (OSR2). With FAT32, disk

partitions can be as large as 2TB (terabytes). It has more fault-tolerance features than FAT16,

and also improves disk-space usage by reducing the size of clusters. However, it lacks several

of the features offered by NTFS for a Windows XP or Windows 2000 system, such as local

security, file encryption, disk quotas, and compression.

If you choose to use FAT, Windows XP Professional will automatically format the partition

with FAT16 if the partition is less than 2GB. If the partition is over 2GB, it will be automatically

partitioned as FAT32.

NTFS

NTFS is a file system designed to provide additional features for Windows NT, Windows 2000,

Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003 computers. Some of the features NTFS offers include

the following:

_ The ability to set local security on files and folders.

_ The option to compress data. This feature reduces disk-storage requirements.

_ The flexibility to assign disk quotas. Disk quotas are used to limit the amount of disk space

a user can use.

_ The option to encrypt files. Encryption offers an additional level of security.

Unless you are planning on dual-booting your computer to an operating system other than

Windows NT, Windows 2000, or another instance of Windows XP, Microsoft recommends

using NTFS.