NTFS : Computer Hardware Buyers’ Glossary

Advantages

• Increased reliability. Less likely to lose information in a crash.
• More efficient storage of small files.
• Option of compressing files and directories.
• Faster access to large random access files (e.g. databases)
• NTFS is only available with NT/W2K/XP/W2K3/Vista/W7.

Disadvantages

• The main reason not to use NTFS is if you want to share data with some OS such as DOS that does not support it. In that case you might use a small FAT partition for exchange and make your main partitions NTFS.
• NTFS has more overhead so is slightly slower, at least for small partitions.
• You can convert FAT to NTFS with CONVERT C: /FS:NTFS at the command line, but you can’t convert back.