FORMAT USB DRIVE WITH NTFS

When you  format a USB drive or memory stick, you may have noticed that the only options you get are FAT and FAT32 file systems. This is the default behavior in Windows XP. However, with some tweaking of settings, you can actually format your removable storage devices in NTFS format, including external hard drives, etc.

Let first see the advantages and disadvantages of formatting a USB drive in NTFS format.

The advantages of enabling NTFS of removable storage devices are mostly security related. For example, an NTFS file system lets you to add allow and deny permissions on individual files and folders for specific Windows users, something you cannot do in the FAT file system. NTFS include the ability to compress files and therefore save space on your USB drive.

There are also a few drawbacks to using NFTS on a USB drive. Firstly, there is a lot more writing to the drive that is required when using NTFS and therefore your access to the device will be slower .If you encrypt your files on the USB drive, you will not be able to open them somewhere else. If you want to secure your USB stick so that only your user account on your one computer can open the files, then encrypting is perfect. If not, then do not encrypt the files. (Depends on what you do it may be advantage or disadvantage)

 

How to format USB drive with NTFS

 Connect your USB device to your computer. Then right-click on MyComputer from the desktop and choose Manage

 

 

Next click on Device Manager and then expand out Disk Drives. You should see your USB drive listed there as “Generic USB 2.0 USB Drive”or something similar (ex: JETFLASH USB DEVICE).

 

  

 

  

Now right-click on the USB drive under Disk Drives and choose Properties. Then go to the Policies tab.

Now you will see two options, the “Optimize for quick removal” selected by default. change that by selecting the “Optimize for performance” option. This enables writing caching on the drive and therefore allows you to format it as NTFS.

Now click OK and then go to My Computer. Right click on the drive in My Computer and choose Format. In  File System you will now see the option for NTFS.

 

Happy Formatting….

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