Dry goods: Comparison of read and write speeds in NTFS and exFat formats on Win and Mac

I. Introduction

Some time ago, my MacBook Pro, which my sister bought in December 2014 and had only switched on four times so far, fell into my hand, so I wanted to try out what Apple’s notebook was. But I have been using windows system computers, such as the current production tools Thinkpad X230 and Thinkpad T530 as a home computer, are used by the windows system, and has now been upgraded to windows10, and it feels good, In particular, the touchpad is set up in the same way as the macbook.

Second, pseudo out of the box

This Macbook Pro 13 is top-notch, i5-4308U + 8G + 500G SSD, the current configuration is not low, especially the processor, and the current version of the i5-5257U 2015 are similar performance. This is what I bought for her. At that time, I wanted to get a lot of photos, including the installation of the windows7 system. Then I thought about it, and it wasn't my own. The world is hard to predict. In the end, it still falls into my hand.

Compared with the TP X230 I used at the time and now, a big lap, but a lot of thin, almost the same weight, without power X230 is 1.34KG, Macbook Pro 13 is 1.58KG, or slightly heavier, personal still like 1KG 12 In the Macbook, I do not know if it is updated this month, and if it is updated, I think that I change this sale for 12 inches.

For the Macbook's one-handed opening of the screen, I would like to give 12 likes, and the TP is really unsatisfactory.

In order to install this Windows7 system, tossing for several nights, finally finally installed a dual system, the right is the home TP T530.

Windows score is not bad, for set display.

Write speed is also quite fast.

Because the elder sister is abroad, if the computer fails, I can't save the urgency. So I made two systems to recover the U disk. Then I thought about it. It was really superfluous. If it was really a problem, she wouldn't take it to a computer repaired abroad. , it must be someone to bring me back to reinstall the system.

Well, want to fall into my income is also "good bird choice and habitat", but my laptop is installed SSD, space is limited, so generally have an external mobile hard disk or U disk transfer files, such as Sandisk CZ80 64GB, and its own DIY 256GB mSata SSD hard drive. However, as we all know, the disk format of Mac and Windows systems is not the same and is not universal, so we want to find a format that is compatible with both to store files, to facilitate both access to read and write.

Third, the commonly used hard disk format

First talk about the format of windows support, the old bird can skip

1, the earliest FAT format, sub-FAT16 and FAT32, the former supports the maximum capacity of the partition is only 2G, so the latter replaced, but the latter also has two problems, first of all can not store more than 4G files, followed by easy to produce disk fragments, Poor performance, which is the regular “disk defragmentation” in the Windows XP era is still important for computers that have been used for some time.

2. This FAT has now been replaced by the NTFS format with better performance. Now the system after installing Windows 7 is the default format. This format can support a single large file of 4GB or more, and now a package for a game, or a 1080P movie will exceed 4G, so this is currently replacing the FAT format, and has a higher security properties.

3, exFat format, this format was originally developed to use U disk, because FAT32 does not support a single large file 4GB or more, and many U disk has exceeded 4G, so this format appears to solve this problem.

On the left is the 32GB SD card, the default FAT32 format, this is the original camera memory card, the default is this format, and the right is the 250GB msata SSD their own DIY mobile hard disk, the default format is NTFS format.

Let's talk about the format of the Mac. The HFS+ file system is the default most common file system in Apple Computer. It comes from UNIX and replaces the previous NFS (Tier File System). It is also called MacOSExtended (or it is incorrectly called HFSExtended”). However, in addition to supporting NFS+ format, Mac supports read and write in Fat and exFat formats. However, NFS format only supports reading and does not support writing. Therefore, many people will install plug-ins that support NTFS reading and writing, such as paragon NTFS, but such plug-ins. Generally, the money is paid, and of course there are cracked versions, but similar plug-ins are also flawed. There is a very low probability that your system will crash. If you have a friend with important information, it is recommended to do more backups.

I talk about the choice from the disk format, I believe that when a friend sees the above, it has been thought, using exFat format on it, yes, but after using the exFat format, for large-capacity mobile hard disk, the actual How is the speed?

Fourth, the test read and write speed <br> Test platform: Macbook Pro 13: i5-4308U, Thinkpad X230: i5-3320M, (all use USB3.0)

Storage devices: Sandisk CZ80, mSata SSD assembled mobile hard disk

Test software: Disk Speed ​​Test for Mac and Crystal Disk Mark for Windows

Preparation: The exFat format uses a Macbook to create the disk format, and NTFS is a disk format created using Windows. The Macbook has the Tuxera NTFS 2015 plug-in installed to support NTFS format writing.

Let's take a look at the CZ80, the most cost-effective U disk from Sandisk, using two formats for reading and writing speeds on Mac and Win systems:

From the above two test screenshots (tested many times, the results are not much difference), come to the following speed:

1, In the Windows system, the read and write speeds of the two disk formats exFat and NTFS are not much different;

2. In Mac OS, the read/write speed in exFat format is not much different from that in Win system; however, under the NTFS format, the read/write speed of Mac OS is far less than that of exFat format.

3, ExFat format, Mac OS system read and write speed slightly lower than the Windows system, but the difference is not large; Under the NTFS format, the read and write speeds of the two systems differ greatly.

Then we test with the mSata SSD assembled mobile hard disk:

As can be seen from the above two diagrams, the conclusions reached in the preceding paragraph can be established, be regarded as verification, the following table summarizes:

At this point, I believe that everyone has their own conclusions, here I talk about my ideas:

1, if you pursue speed, then exFat format is the best choice, but exFat format also has a drawback, that is slightly less compatible, such as the old system such as XP can not support, you need to install the plug-in, even if it is win7, I have encountered Compatibility issues need to be formatted, but there is no problem with plugging back into win10, and yes I use this format.

2, I personally do not recommend the use of NTFS disk format in mobile devices, first of all very hurt U disk (mechanical mobile hard disk can not consider this), because the ntfs partition uses "logged" file system, you need to record detailed read and write operations, certainly Will compare the flash memory chip, because they must continue to read and write; Secondly, compatibility is not very good for MacOS, you need to install plug-ins to write, and the speed is not bad.

Finally, the Macbook Pro has Thunderbolt. Each lightning interface has two channels. The bandwidth of each channel can reach 10Gb/s in both directions. The maximum transmission bandwidth of USB3.0 is up to 5.0Gbps (500MB/s). , Unfortunately, I do not have a mobile storage device with a lightning interface. The price of this interface device is really too expensive, and the price/performance ratio is too low to be used.

I hope this disk format test report will be of reference to you. Thank you.

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