Criteria

NTFS5

NTFS

exFAT

FAT32

FAT16

FAT12

Operating System

Windows 2000
Windows XP
Windows 2003 Server
Windows 2008
Windows Vista
Windows 7

Windows NT
Windows 2000
Windows XP
Windows 2003 Server
Windows 2008Windows Vista
Windows 7

Windows CE 6.0
Windows Vista SP1
Windows 7
WinXP+KB955704  

DOS v7 and higher
Windows 98
Windows ME
Windows 2000
Windows XP
Windows 2003 Server
Windows Vista
Windows 7

DOS
All versions of
Microsoft Windows

DOS
All versions of
Microsoft Windows

Limitations

Max Volume Size

2⁶⁴ clusters minus 1 cluster

2³² clusters minus 1 cluster

128PB

32GB for all OS.
2TB for some OS

2GB for all OS.
4GB for some OS

16MB

Max Files on Volume

4,294,967,295 (2³²-1)

4,294,967,295 (2³²-1)

Nearly Unlimited

4194304

65536

Max File Size

2⁶⁴ bytes (16 ExaBytes)
minus 1KB

2⁴⁴ bytes (16 TeraBytes)
minus 64KB

16EB

4GB minus 2 Bytes

2GB (Limit Only
by Volume Size)

16MB (Limit Only
by Volume Size)

Max Clusters Number

2⁶⁴ clusters minus 1 cluster

2³² clusters minus 1 cluster

4294967295

4177918

65520

4080

Max File Name Length

Up to 255

Up to 255

Up to 255

Up to 255

Standard - 8.3
Extended - up to 255

Up to 254

File System Features

Unicode File Names

Unicode
 Character Set

Unicode
 Character Set

Unicode
 Character Set

System
 Character Set

System
 Character Set

System
 Character Set

System Records Mirror

MFT Mirror File

MFT Mirror File

No

Second Copy of  FAT

Second Copy of  FAT

Second Copy of  FAT

Boot Sector Location

First and Last Sectors

First and Last Sectors

Sectors 0 to 11
Copy in 12 to 23

First Sector and
Copy in Sector #6

First Sector

First Sector

File Attributes

Standard and Custom

Standard and Custom

Standard Set

Standard Set

Standard Set

Standard Set

Alternate Streams

Yes

Yes

No

No

No

No

Compression

Yes

Yes

No

No

No

No

Encryption

Yes

No

No

No

No

No

Object Permissions

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

No

Disk Quotas

Yes

No

No

No

No

No

Sparse Files

Yes

No

No

No

No

No

Reparse Points

Yes

No

No

No

No

No

Volume Mount Points

Yes

No

No

No

No

No

Overall Performance

Built-In Security

Yes

Yes

Yes
minimal ACL only

No

No

No

Recoverability

Yes

Yes

Yes
if TFAT activated

No

No

No

Performance

Low on small volumes
High on Large

Low on small volumes
High on Large

High

High on small volumes
Low on large

Highest on small volumes
Low on large

High

Disk Space Economy

Max

Max

Max

Average

Minimal on large volumes

Max

Fault Tolerance

Max

Max

Yes
if TFAT activated

Minimal

Average

Average