You may never have heard of the terms FAT32 and NTFS, or at least never cared enough to find out what they are, but they are file systems. When you format your hard drive, you can choose whether to format it using FAT32 or NTFS.
They both have pros and cons, but from a security perspective, you should choose NTFS. FAT32 does not offer any sort of file or folder security. NTFS, on the other hand, allows you to secure files at an individual level and specify which users are authorized to access them.You must also use NTFS if you want to use EFS (Encrypting File System) to further secure your data.
When it comes to sharing files and folders with other computers on your network, the underlying file system does not matter. Other computers on your network, whether running Windows XP,Windows NT, Linux or some other operating system, will be able to access the shared data. If you share out files on a drive using FAT32, though, you will be unable to provide security at a file level.Thus, anyone who can access the share will have access to everything in the shared drive or folder.
As a final note, NTFS also offers support for larger file sizes and drive partitions and provides better data compression and less file fragmentation than the FAT32 file systems.
