Some of us may barely pay attention to the type of file system used our stick, whether it is NTFS, FAT32 or FAT. To find out the file system used, right-click the flash in Windows Explorer and select Properties. There looks the type of File System is used.
But when we try to format through Windows Explorer, maybe there is no menu NTFS, the only FAT32 and FAT. How to format NTFS and what is the difference with FAT32 and FAT?
Tips to flash format with NTFS File System
Category Hardware, Tips & Tricks | Seen 91.057 times | 98 Comments
Format NTFS
Some of us may barely pay attention to the type of file system used our stick, whether it is NTFS, FAT32 or FAT. To find out the file system used, right-click the flash in Windows Explorer and select Properties. There looks the type of File System is used.
But when we try to format through Windows Explorer, maybe there is no menu NTFS, the only FAT32 and FAT. How to format NTFS and what is the difference with FAT32 and FAT?
fat32-file-system
Why NTFS?
NTFS is the format of the latest Windows system files after FAT32, and has several advantages such as the ability to store additional information about a file / folder (metadata), security features, data compression, better structure and others.
In addition, the type of NTFS can be used to format the larger size, only 2 GB for FAT, FAT32 8 TB (8,000 GB), while NTFS can be up to 16 EB (16 million TB). Nevertheless, there is still NTFS drawbacks, such as unreadable in the Win9x and the process of reading and writing to disk more often.
Because each file / folder store more information (metadata), then the process of reading and writing each file / folder will more often than FAT32 or FAT type, so for the flash, affecting the life (durability). Given flash memory have limited literacy. (Article about keeping to be more durable flash can be read here: Characteristics and Tips to keep the stick more durable)
Enabling NTFS format in Windows Explorer
Can we format the USB stick with NTFS type with the help of the HP USB Format Tools. But the actual Windows Explorer can do it. To enable it to follow the following steps
1.Buka System Properties by right-click My Computer> Properties (or by keyboard buttons Win + Break)
2.Buka Hardware tab and then click the Device Manager
3.Pilih Disk Drive and select the flash that you want to format with NTFS, right click, select Properties.
4.After open select the Policies tab
5.Pilih Optimize for performance and click OK
6.Setelah it try right-clicking the flash drive in Windows Explorer and select the Format menu, then there should have appeared NTFS File System.
Noteworthy is that when this option is enabled, any repeal the flash should always be through the Safety Remove Hardware. If the option is "Optimize for quick removal" is actually the flash can be directly removed, without the Safety Remove Hardware
Test between NTFS, FAT32 and FAT
I have tried multiple comparisons (especially the process of copying the data) with different types, and the results are as follows:
-> Copy the 11 files (each of size about 170 MB) total some 1.8 GB
NTFS 04:44 (4 minutes 46 seconds)
FAT32 5:09 (5 minutes 9 seconds)
FAT 04:46 (4 minutes 46 seconds)
-> 1297 Copy files (size between 1 KB to 23 KB) for a total of 8.23 MB
NTFS 29 seconds
FAT32 56 seconds
FAT 58 seconds
-> Capacity after Format
NTFS 2,038,044,672 bytes Used space is 12,937,216 bytes (12.3 MB)
FAT32 2,046,959,616 bytes 4096 bytes Used space (4:00 KB)
FAT 2,050,686,976 bytes Used Space 0 bytes
Visible copying data with NTFS, relatively quickly, but after the format size is slightly smaller because it needed additional space for larger files / folders (metadata). If the flash is often used for reading and writing process and little need for NTFS features, such as data security, then choose the type of FAT32 may be better.
