NTFS or FAT32

Thnx LMiller7 - I will defer to your response and explanation as authoritative enough for me. Final o.t. question (I promise). What do you recommend for reliable permanent data backup and/or storage?

Flash storage wears out when you write to it, but not when you read from it. NTFS' Live Journaling feature, which keeps a record of changes to your files, writes to the drive a lot, and will thus shorten its life.
Speed really isn't an issue. Benchmarked reading and writing to the same flash drive formatted both ways. FAT32 proved faster, but not fast enough to worry about. The speed difference was less than 2.5 percent.

What do you recommend for reliable permanent data backup and/or storage?

For very important data I would use a flash stick and store off site. I store back up data with in friends gunsafe and vise-verse.

NTFS has an advantage that is often not understood. NTFS is much faster when accessing files in very large folders. When FAT32 searches a folder it must read every name until it finds the one it wants so on average it will need to read 1/2 the names in the folder. NTFS uses a more advanced method involving successive guesses to narrow down the search. Similar to the old number guessing game. The result being it requires little more time to access a folder with 1,000 or even 10,000 files than one with only 100 files. This isn't usually important in a flash drive but is on a drive containing Windows.

madcratebuilder said:

For very important data I would use a flash stick and store off site. I store back up data with in friends gunsafe and vise-verse.

Flash stick? Would that be those tiny thin cards that typically use an edge-connector type interface? I am understanding that a flash drive's 'life expectancy' is reduced due multiple reads/writes. If it was written to just once for a permanent storage scenario, why could not these be considered a reliable permanent storage solution? -thnx.

(yes, I know, broke my promise)

MourningStar said:

If it was written to just once for a permanent storage scenario, why could not these be considered a reliable permanent storage solution?

If it was written to just once for a permanent storage scenario, why could not these be considered a reliable permanent storage solution?

Because writing to the drive is not the only factor is disk reliability. Drives that are never written to can and do fail, often without warning or apparent cause.