External drive FAT32 or NTFS

[gs47]

I have an external 1-click backup hard drive connected by firewire that is currently using the FAT32 file system.
A few years ago when I installed it, I was told to use FAT32 rather than NTFS but I can not remember why. It seems that there was a good reason at the time??
NTFS is what my other drives use and the FAT32 file system seems to take longer to do some things and definitely longer to just delete large files.

I use it to do full system backups or more commonly just backup my C: drive every week or so.
I have another large internal HDD too, also using NTFS like my C: drive.

Does anyone know of a good reason to keep FAT32 rather than switching to NTFS?? NTFS seems superior for most needs.

[benbryant]

The reason that most of the external hard drive are built with FAT12 is that they can be read by different OS such as Win 98, Me, 2000, XP, and even MAC Apple

Regards

[gs47]

Ah, makes sense. If I plan to use on other OS. Keeps the drive portable and can use with a wider variety of PCs, etc. I'll have to think about that.

Thanks benbryant, I appreciate the answer.

[olyteddy]

A big advantage of NTFS is the larger filesize. FAT chokes on anything over 2 GB.

[anonymez]

FAT chokes on anything over 2 GB.

That's FAT16. FAT32's limit is 4GB

[Chewy]

anony,
does ubuntu see ntfs, read and write?

[anonymez]

Ubuntu, by default, sees and reads NTFS. It can write too by typing:

sudo apt-get install ntfs-3g

into the terminal, which will automatically download & install the appropriate driver. NTFS writing by default will likely make it into the next release, 7.10, in October.