Lesson 5

Hey, it’s always scary when the tech department says they’re going to upgrade your computer, especially when you don’t know your FAT32 from your NTFS. Usually, though, you can trust that those guys know what they’re doing. In this case, they’re giving you a more advanced system of file organization for your hard drive.

To put it simply, FAT32 is the system you currently have. FAT32 takes your file and breaks it into pieces, then stores those pieces in little slots of predetermined sizes. If you have just a little information, the rest of that storage slot cannot be used. Imagine you’re putting your clothes away in your dresser. But each drawer can only hold one outfit. One drawer might have a sweater, shirt, pants, belt, socks and shoes. That drawer is almost full, so it’s a good use of space. But the next drawer just has a dress and shoes. There’s more space left, but you can’t use it because of the one-outfit-per-drawer rule.

NTFS is another way of organizing and storing your information, but it is much more secure than FAT32. NTFS stores a copy of backup information in the middle of the disk, which provides protection against losing information. It is like spilling coffee on a report, but the coffee just gets the edges of the paper wet. That information in the middle is safe. NTFS also lets you control who can access which files. Because we have multiple users on computers, it’s important to make sure that the person who works the shift after you can’t get into your files and change them. NTFS also reduces the amount of storage space you need because it allows compression of files. So simple – why didn’t they think of that before? Finally, NTFS is much more customizable in terms of drive setups. If you realize you need more information on a volume, you can quickly and easily reallocate space.

NTFS is becoming more common as people upgrade their old computers. It’s what I’ve got on one of my computers at home.