exFAT vs NTFS: Overall Findings
Security features such as roles/permissions.
Journaling helps recover data in the event of a crash.
Optional encryption for NTFS volumes.
Can manage more files per directory.
Standard Windows format since Windows XP.
More widely supported by operating systems.
Less capacity restrictions than its precedessor, FAT.
Supports larger file sizes.
Full format specification released by Microsoft.
Potentially susceptible to system crashes.
The built-in security and resiliency features you get automatically make this a no-brainer.
This can include media likeexternal hard drivesas well.
Support: exFAT Is Supported Across More Systems
Widely supported on a variety of OSes.
Best choice for older OS versions.
Solid read/write support across platforms.
Out-of-the-box default on Windows.
Write access experimental on some platforms.
Non-Windows systems may need manual driver installation.
Microsoft created the NT file system, or NTFS, for its enterprise operating system Windows NT.
So it created the Extensible File Allocation Table format, or exFAT, to fill this middle ground.
This allows any hardware or software vendor to use it in their releases.
Supports extremely large files as well.
Limit on maximum number of directories per volume.
Hard upper limit on storage.
Two PB limit is more than most users would ever need.
Supports a higher number of directories.
When it comes to managing files, however, NTFS has the edge.
Journaling: NTFS Has It out of the Box
Journaling requires manual add-on installation.
Lack of journaling makes it incompatible with some backup applications.
Single allocation table makes data loss more likely.
Built-in journaling aids in disaster recovery.
After a crash, any pending writes can be replayed.
Lowers the chance of needing to repair disk.
Security Features: NTFS Has Many, but Only on Windows
No built-in permissions framework.
Executable rights are a security risk.
Encryption must be handled manually.
Works together with Windows roles/permissions.
However, these permissions may not carry over to other OSs.
As mentioned previously, NTFS includes a security scheme that aligns with the one in recent versions of Windows.
It also has the option to encrypt data automatically.
Compare this to exFAT, which has no mechanism to track these permissions.
