External hard drive - getting started

[arthurk]

I've just acquired an external hard drive, and have a couple of questions about getting started with it.

First, it came formatted as FAT32, but I think I read somewhere that NTFS is preferable. I'm using XP Home, and don't ever expect to connect it to a computer using anything other than Windows, and then only XP or later. Would it be a good idea to reformat it to NTFS?

Second, whenever I plug a drive of any sort into a USB port (thumb drive; camera card reader; this new HDD) it is assigned the letter E: (Except on one occasion when I had 2 devices plugged in at once and one became F: ) I've found instructions on how to change a drive letter (MS site Article ID 307844), but if I do that with a removable device, will the computer remember the change next time I plug it in?

Thanks for any help,
Arthur

[Nicolina]

we have several external hard drives (500Meg & 1 Terabye) and have left all as Fat32. They all run perfectly on Vista Home Basic and Home Premium. As for the drive letter, why change it? It doesn't make any difference what letter it has.
Elaine

[arthurk]

One thing I saw suggested that NTFS was faster and more secure, both of which seem quite good reasons to prefer it over FAT32. As for the drive letter, I was wondering about using the new drive to install some lesser-used programs or else for storing data relating to programs on the C: drive, in which case it would be important to have a consistent letter, wouldn't it?

Arthur

[Guy Etchells]

NTFS has many advantages over FAT 32.
Control over which users can access which files.
Compression, NTFS allows files to take up less disk space due to smaller cluster size. Cluster size determines the minimum space available, if the cluster size is 512 k then even 1k of data takes up 512k of space.
Recoverable, NTFS stores files in two separate places this means if one file gets corrupted the other will be recovered by the system.
Capacity FAT32 is limited to about 2 terabytes NTFS around 19 terabytes.
Speed NTFS is faster at locating files than FAT 32 because of the B-tree structure used.

There are many other advantages but these are enough to be going on with
Cheers
Guy

[Guest]

I second what Guy has said about NTFS - he beat me to it because I've been watching the news

There is no point in changing the drive letter. The OS will recognise the drive when it is plugged in no matter what the letter is.

As regards installing software, always install to the C drive. Use other drives (be they partitions of the main internal hard drive or separate internal/external drives) for storing data and/or system recovery software/data. You don't have to have the same drive letter for data as for the software. Many programs store the data files within the same folder as the software simply because many users have no idea about setting up separate data folders.

Graham

[Alan Welsford]

You've got me wondering now.

We bought an external drive a while back, mainly for data copies, and it never occurred to me that the format might be other than NTFS.

A useful prompt to go and check.

I'd echo the comments about not trying to install software on it. Keep it simple, and have anything that's installed only on your fixed drive(s). To do otherwise seems to be making complications that you do not need to.

Alan

[Rove]

A very interesting piece of info. I've been thinking about buying an external unit.

Thanks to Guy and all of you.

Bill.

[Mary Anne]

Me, too. Thanks, all. I still can't get my head around needing 500 MB for backup though, when my hard drive is only 80GB and it's not full yet

[arthurk]

Thanks for all the help on file systems - looks like NTFS is the way to go. I take the point about installing programs only on to the C: drive, but if a program is going to access data on the external drive, would I then need to make sure that the same letter was always allocated to it? (It might never happen, but I can envisage the situation where I have a thumb drive plugged in as E: and then I attach the HDD, which becomes F: rather than its usual E:.)

Arthur

[Guy Etchells]

I work in a slightly different way from that recommended by others.
All my computers have at least two internal drives a C: drive and a D: drive.

I only install the operating system on my C: drive and allow the rest of the drive to be used for temp files and system cache.
This allows high speed access and transfer in most situations.

All programs are installed on my D: drive which is also used for stored files etc.
Back-ups are on two external drives or remote computers depending on how vital they are.

If you wish to force an external drive (usb) to keep the same drive letter then ensure it is connected and switched on before connecting any other usb storage (this includes cd drives).
Cheers
Guy