Schedule on exFAT support

[GrantD]

With the new support in Windows 7 and Windows Vista SP2 to expand the usage of exFAT options, is there a timeline for when exFAT will be supported by Defraggler?

 

exFAT is Microsoft's new FAT64 that, with the add-on support in Windows 7 and Vista SP2, will have complete ACL options like NTFS and requires only a fraction of the disk space for file headers. In a test done on a 500 GB HDD with the exact same data, the NTFS headers took 200 megabytes of space while the exFAT took 33 megabytes. Big improvement and I want to use it on my data drives, but need to be able to defragment.

[Augeas]

Is M/S now pushing exFat for hard drives, as opposed to its original intention of specifically portable devices?

 

167 mb on a 500 gb disk is negligible, around three-hundredths of one percent. Not really a big improvement.

[Guest MrRon]

We are investigating support for exFAT, but are waiting for more demand as it is not an easy thing to add. If we get lots more requests, then of course we will add support

MrRon

[GrantD]

Is M/S now pushing exFat for hard drives, as opposed to its original intention of specifically portable devices?

 

167 mb on a 500 gb disk is negligible, around three-hundredths of one percent. Not really a big improvement.

 

Sorry about that, I was reading another artical on exFAT when I wrote this post, I meant to say on a 4 GB HDD, on a 500 GB, it is more significant. I should have reread my post before submitting, my mistake. Microsoft is not pushing the exFAT anymore then NTFS, but with data drives that need to be as little fragmented as possible, then exFAT woul be an advantage, but that does not mean no fragmentation.

 

I work with drive arrays that are in the 10 to 20 terabyte range (80%-95% full), and exFAT would be better suited for the reduction in fragmentation, but I would still need to defragment periodically and with NTFS, defraggler is one of the best I ever worked with and would just like to know if there is a plan for exFAT suport.

[Augeas]

No problem, that's just me being pernickety. As far as I know M/S are still intending that exFat is used on mobile personal storage, as they call it. I doubt whether there will be a great takeup on hard drives, as it seems unlikely to become an offering on new pcs and the overwhelming majority of users won't want, or know how, to change that. But then Bill doesn't let me in on his plans.

[GrantD]

No problem, that's just me being pernickety. As far as I know M/S are still intending that exFat is used on mobile personal storage, as they call it. I doubt whether there will be a great takeup on hard drives, as it seems unlikely to become an offering on new pcs and the overwhelming majority of users won't want, or know how, to change that. But then Bill doesn't let me in on his plans.

 

Well, as far as Microsoft is concern, the main filesystem to be used for the operating system drive will stay at NTFS for now (there is no plan to set that to exFAT by the development team) and the default format for an internal drive will stay at NTFS or FAT32 depending on the size of the drive. Most likely the main users of it on internal drives will be with server systems that can take days to defragment at a time, like ours.

 

As I said before, with Vista SP2 and Windows 7, the ability to use ACL (account control lists) like NTFS permission on the exFAT makes it look more promising for server use.

 

So don't worry, NTFS will probably stay the main filesystem used on personal systems for a long time to come.

[Parka]

XP sp2 and XP sp3 supports exFAT after installing KB955704.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...;displaylang=en