LaCie FIREWIRE 800/400 - Manual (Page 45)

LaCie Biggest Quadra
User Manual page
Technical Information
Windows Users ■
Use NTFS if...
...you will be using the drive only under Windows 2000
or Windows XP (performance will generally be greater
when compared to FAT 32). This file system is compat-
ible in read only mode with Mac OS 10.3 and higher.
Use FAT 32 if...
...you will be using your drive between both Windows
and Mac OS 9.x or 10.x; or sharing the drive between
Windows 2000, XP, and 98 SE. Maximum single file
size: 4GB.
Use HFS+ if...
...you will be using the drive on Macs only; performance
will generally be greater when compared to FAT 32. This
file system is NOT compatible with Windows OS.
For more information, please refer to section 4.5. Format-
ting and Partitioning Your LaCie Hard Drive .
There are basically two file system formats for Win-
dows: FAT 32 and NTFS. The following information
will hopefully make choosing one or the other a little
easier.
FAT 32
FAT is an acronym for File Allocation Table, which
dates back to the beginnings of DOS programming.
Originally, FAT was only 16 bits, but after the second
release of Windows 95 it was upgraded to 32 bits, hence
the name FAT 32. In theory, FAT 32 volume sizes can
range from less than 1MB all the way to 2TB. It is the
native file system of Windows 98 and Windows Me,
and is supported by Windows 2000 and XP. When FAT
32 is used with Windows 2000 and XP, though, vol-
ume size is limited to 32GB (by the Windows partition
utility, i.e. Disk Manager), and the individual file size is
limited to 4GB.
NTFS
This acronym stands for New Technology Filing
System, and it is the native file system for Windows NT,
Windows 2000 and XP. NTFS offers several features
that are not available with FAT 32; i.e. file compres-
sion, encryption, permissions, and auditing, as well as
the ability to mirror drives and RAID 5 capabilities. The
minimum supported volume size for NTFS is 10MB
with a maximum of 256TB and a 16TB file size limit.
Volumes created in NTFS can only be directly accessed
(not through shares) by Windows NT, Windows 2000
and XP, without resorting to help from third-party
products.