Forums - Music techology
Subject: FAT 16 or FAT 32 for digital audio ?
Viewing all 13 messages - View by pages of 10: 1 2
Original Message 1/13 31-Jul-98 @ 12:41 AM - FAT 16 or FAT 32 for digital audio ?
first I assumed FAT 32 because of smaller clusters
on large drives, but one person said go back to
FAT 16, its faster. Is this really true ? Wouldn,t
audio take up more space and I thought if the FAT
is 32 that means 32 bit right. Also, are smaller partitions really better or a big roomy 6 or 7 gig drive ? ALL COMMENTS GREATFULLY APPReCIATED
Message 2/13 31-Jul-98 @ 03:23 AM - RE: FAT 16 or FAT 32 for digital audio ?
Peace
Message 3/13 02-Aug-98 @ 11:17 AM - RE: FAT 16 or FAT 32 for digital audio ?
Message 4/13 02-Aug-98 @ 01:10 PM - RE: FAT 16 or FAT 32 for digital audio ?
Its a well known fact that FAT32 should NOT be used for digtal audio purposes and hard-disk recording!
Its something to do with that 4k thing that Islandman's on about.
Message 5/13 02-Aug-98 @ 01:26 PM - RE: FAT 16 or FAT 32 for digital audio ?
Message 6/13 02-Aug-98 @ 07:18 PM - RE: FAT 16 or FAT 32 for digital audio ?
16 bit FAT AND 32 bit FAT. There was really NO difference.
But: I have got an UltraWide SCSI Adaptec busmaster controller (2940).
With E-IDE you should use 16 bit FAT, with Ultra DMA IDE there should be no measurable differences too.
Message 7/13 02-Aug-98 @ 10:07 PM - RE: FAT 16 or FAT 32 for digital audio ?
Who says it's a well known fact you shouldn't use fat32 for hd recording ? If this is the case, I'd like to know why. My fat32 partition is faster (tested with that IQS tool), isn't that one of the criteria for hd recording ?
Message 8/13 03-Aug-98 @ 02:51 AM - RE: FAT 16 or FAT 32 for digital audio ?
Message 9/13 03-Aug-98 @ 03:47 PM - RE: FAT 16 or FAT 32 for digital audio ?
Question: Which is better for audio?
Answer: Depends.
FAT16: Stores files in larger cluster sizes (which can eat hard drive space), is a BIT (but only a wee bit) more stable and can interact with other file systems more easily.
FAT32: Stores files in smaller cluster sizes (which saves hard drive space), is faster then FAT16 by a long shot, but sometimes has problems with other file systems. FAT32 exists only with certain versions of Win95 (there are 5 versions BTW.)
So to make a long story short, use FAT16 is you have plenty of HD space, a fast CPU and you are on some sort of a network, otherwise, rebuild your system with FAT32.
***WARNING*** Backup EVERYTHING before converting. There are conversion utilities available but they are not always stable or thorough. SO USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!!
Message 10/13 03-Aug-98 @ 04:04 PM - RE: FAT 16 or FAT 32 for digital audio ?
FAT32 is a significantly better filesystem. It's faster and more stable, and unless you enjoy dealing with the clunky way Windows deals with multiple drives, you don't have much of a choice when formatting a large drive. The cons, as was mentioned before, are that a Windows 95 OSR2 system running on a FAT32 drive WILL NOT want to interact with a FAT16 volume. The issue raised in an earlier post regarding networking actually does not apply because the clients and protocols involved in sharing data over a network are designed to be storage independant. In my home I have a PC with a FAT16 drive, a PC with a FAT32 drive, and a PC running NT with NTFS volumes. Interoperability is not a problem.
I want to restate, though, that you NEED TO MAKE A BACKUP. Although the conversion process in Windows '98seems to be very good, I've found that the best way to change a filesystem is back up system data, FDISK and reformat the drive, and reload the OS and applications from scratch.
Feel free to e-mail me at 99devils@mindless.com any time you have a computer-related problem like this and want advice from someone who is a computer professional. You will eventually get screwed if you keep listening to some dude off the net who watches Wired-TV once a week and thinks A is better than B because he read it in PC weekly or something.
-Craig
Message 11/13 04-Aug-98 @ 12:09 AM - RE: FAT 16 or FAT 32 for digital audio ?
I think everyone here has sense enough NOT to take the word of one person they don't know and run with it. Everyone here shares the opinions on gear and such but it's still up to the indvidual to trust that person's judgement. All the searching I did on tests results say there is less than 1% performance hit when using FAT32 which is basically nothing. But, as always...take what I say with a grain of salt...:}
Peace
Message 12/13 04-Aug-98 @ 07:48 AM - RE: FAT 16 or FAT 32 for digital audio ?
FAT 32 is really good mainly for the large drive support
it offers for audio, however make sure the drives are formatted in 32K or 64K clusters, NOT 4K which is requires
too many read/writes on hard drive normally. If you don't
have Partion Magic or something similar you do the hard
way(No PUN intended) with FDISK at DOS promt
"format/z:32 c:" or "format/z:64 c:"
Then of course reload from backup. This is what I did and
I am thoroughly confident on this matter now
Message 13/13 04-Aug-98 @ 04:48 PM - RE: FAT 16 or FAT 32 for digital audio ?
-Craig
Viewing all 13 messages - View by pages of 10: 1 2
There are 13 total messages for this topic
Reply to Thread
You need to register/login to use the forum.
Click here to Signup or Login !
[you'll be brought right back to this point after signing up]
Back to Forum