Mar 97 How does FAT32 affect system performance?
To quote the Microsoft Knowledge Base article referenced below: “For most users, FAT32 will have a negligible performance impact. Some programs may see a slight performance gain from FAT32. In other programs, particularly those heavily dependent on large sequential read or write operations, FAT32 may result in a modest performance degradation.” Basically, the more clusters on your hard drive, the slower the performance. This is true for any file system, FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, HPFS, whatever. However, since FAT32 allows for many more clusters on a single partition than FAT16, the effect may be noticable. Disk utilities are especially affected (slower) the more clusters in the partition. For instance, the closer to 8GB your partition gets, the more 4K clusters, and the slower the performance. (However, as your partition gets bigger, your slack vs. FAT16 improves.) In preliminary benchmark testing, FAT32 and FAT16 benchmark roughly the same (within 2% either way) when partition size and clus
