External had drive - NTFS/FAT32?

Got myself one of those Western Digital "My book" 750 gb thingies yesterday and started copying some data on it already (not much). But today in the morning I've noticed that it's FAT32. My other external drives are all NTFS (and also are considerably smaller and older). Should I reformat it while I still don't have too much data moved to it?

As far as I know, it is a very, very bad idea to mix file types. It's always better to err on the side of caution anyway - especially if the data is important!

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I just check mine and it's also FAT32. And I've been using it for almost a year now!!! It's worked fine so far, so it's probably okay. I hope.

I think you should leave it as fat32 - it's for compatabilty purposes.

If your using it in a Windows 2K/XP/VISTA/Server only environment then go for NTFS. Here's a link to the avdvantages of using NTFS over FAT32 http://www.theeldergeek.com/ntfs_or_fat32_file_system.htm

You can now write (it's still a bit limited) to NTFS formatted drive under linux and Mac OS X.
http://www.ntfs-3g.org/

Actually, it's trivial to convert a FAT32 drive to NTFS: Windows actually comes with a conversion tool built in. See http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/ntfscvt.php for some instructions.

Takes just a couple of minutes and a reboot. Note that it is a one-way process, you can't convert a live disk from NTFS back to FAT...
(The main reason of the conversion tool was for those who upgraded from Win9x to Windows 2000 -- in that scenario the drive would still be in FAT32 mode. It asked you whether you wanted to convert to NTFS after the first boot, but you could still do it manually later as well. The same conversion tool is also included with XP, and IIRC Vista.

I read somewhere that you can't have file sizes over 4GB on fat32, this isn't a problem for most people though.

I have a WD My Book - it was pre-formatted to FAT32 for compatability.

I formatted mine to NTFS.

I would advise you to shunt it to NTFS - considering the size of it

you do get all the bennefits of ntfs like your main drive, but mine i kept as fat32 cos
a> i couldnt be bothered
b> aside from any dvd's that can be copied over (once had all 14 or so dvds of macross as the drive sounded like it was a power saw not a dvd player) i dont creep anywhere near there, not even with my wav recorder (try and keep it to an audio cd/cd rom limit)
c> if i do need to, i can see it with ease under another os (but not w98 cos its too big for it to understand iir)

IIRC, Win98 can use large FAT32 drives, it just won't let you create them / install the OS itself on them.

Thanks guys, I'm gonna reformat it to NTFS since I tend to make huge archives once in a while. And no, I'm windows only and I'm not planning on using it on my old machines.
I'm kind of surprised by how loud it is occasionally.

Even if you are using on different version of Windows NT based OSs (for example if you will be swapping it between a Windows 2000, XP or Vista based host machine) I would recommend FAT32.

Newer versions of Windows use newer versions of NTFS and Vista especially uses it in weird ways in certain circumstances. Unless you will be dealing with files larger the 4GB (archives don't count, you can split them easily) you may encounter problems with NTFS.

It's a great filesystem for OS related activities but if you are moving it about it's always best to go with FAT32.

not that ive tried it in the machine (id have to unbox it first) i thought it would throw a hissy fit or just plain ignor a 320gb usb drive

found out by chance looking at some pix i took of my current box that its sata and im after a 1tb internal for all my mp3's etc so i dont need to get a controller card :)
the loud cpu fan thread started it, i was sure my fan was the size of a 50 cd spindle lid or there abouts and the drive was in an odd position and i thought hmm whats this red cable and wheres the ide? joy it must be sata
and i only took those pix after i threw my old drive in to copy stuff over, thought whilst its open lets get a few david baley's