LaCie D2 BLU-RAY XL User Manual - page 15
LaCie d2 Quadra Enterprise Class
• D
esign
by
n
eil
P
oulton
Setup
User Manual
page 15
2.3. Formatting and Partitioning
Thed2Quadracomespre-formattedinHFS+(optimizedforMac
OSX).Pleasereadthefollowinginformationonfilesystemformats
forWindowsandMacoperatingsystemstodetermineifyouneedto
reformatthed2’sdisk.Seesections
2.3.2
and
2.3.3
forformatting
instructions.
2.3.1. File System Formats
Windows Users
TECHNICAL NOTE:
TheLaCied2Quadracomespreformattedin
HFS+foroptimumperformancewithMacOSX.
FAT32
:FATisanacronymforFileAllocationTable,whichdates
backtothebeginningsofDOSprogramming.Originally,FATwas
only 16 bits, but after the second release of Windows 95 it was
upgradedto32bits,hencethenameFAT32.Intheory,FAT32
volume sizes can range from less than 1MB all the way to 2TB.
It is the native file system of Windows 98 and Windows Me, and
issupportedbyWindows2000,WindowsXP,WindowsVista,and
Windows7.WhenFAT32isusedwithWindows2000,Windows
XP,WindowsVista,andWindows7though,volumesizeislimitedto
32GB(bytheWindowspartitionutility,i.e.DiskManager),andthe
individualfilesizeislimitedto4GB.
NTFS:
ThisacronymstandsforNewTechnologyFilingSystem,and
itisthenativefilesystemforWindowsNT,Windows2000,Windows
XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. NTFS offers several features
thatarenotavailablewithFAT32;i.e.filecompression,encryption,
permissions,andauditing,aswellastheabilitytomirrordrivesand
RAID5capabilities.TheminimumsupportedvolumesizeforNTFS
is10MB,withamaximumof2TBwheninitializedinMBRformat
or without a limit when initialized in GPT format, with no limit to
file size. Volumes created in NTFS can only be directly accessed
(notthroughshares)byWindowsNT,Windows2000,WindowsXP,
WindowsVista,andWindows7withoutresortingtohelpfromthird-
partyproducts.
Windows File System Formats
TherearetwopossiblefilesystemformatcategoriesforWin-
dowsusers:NTFSandFAT32(MS-DOS).Seethetablebe-
lowformoreinformation.
Use NTFS if:
...youwillbeusingthedriveonlywithWindowsXP,Windows
Vista,andWindows7(performancewillgenerallybegreater
whencomparedtoFAT32).Thisfilesystemiscompatiblein
readonlymodewithMacOS10.3andhigher.
Use FAT32 if:
...youwillbeusingyourdrivewithbothWindowsandMac
OS9.xor10.x.Maximumsinglefilesizeis4GB.