This chapter provides an overview of the capabilities and limitations of the FAT and NTFS file systems. Chapter 17, "Disk and File System Basics," describes the structure of FAT and NTFS volumes from the perspective of how each file system organizes the data on the disk. This chapter focuses on the user aspects of each file system.
You can use either or both of these file systems on a computer. Which one you choose for your computer, or for an individual volume on your computer, depends on such things as:
NTFS provides several advantages when compared to FAT, which are described in this chapter. But, if you will be using another operating system in addition to Windows NT, you can access files on NTFS volumes only from Windows NT. You must use a file system other that NTFS for the system and boot partitions for the other operating systems.
For more information about file systems, especially NTFS, see Inside the Windows NT File System, by Helen Custer (Microsoft Press 1994, ISBN 1-55615-660-X), which documents the NTFS file system design.