This is really not about the operating system, per say, with the exception being the differences in how WinXP, Win2K and WinNT handle long and short file names in comparison to previous operating systems, but about the file system used after the partitions are created.
(1) Can I also put all those files say in a single partition of 10 GB directly with only one root folder?
FAT32 Size Limitations:
Maximum file size - 4 GB.
Files per volume - 4,177,920.
Maximum number of files and subfolders within a single folder - 65,534.
(Note: The use of long file names can significantly reduce the number of available files and subfolders within a folder.)
To prevent a FAT file system from creating long file names, set the value of the Win31FileSystem registry entry (in the subkey HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem) to 1. This value prevents WinXP from creating new long file names on all FAT volumes. However, existing long file names remain intact but are not displayed in My Computer, Windows Explorer, or at the command prompt.
NTFS Size Limits
Maximum File Size: Theory: 16 exabytes minus 1KB
Implementation: 16 terabytes minus 64KB
Files per volume - 4,294,967,295
If you have a large number of files (300,000 or more) in a folder, and the files have long file names with the same initial characters, the time required to create the files increases. The increase occurs because NTFS bases the short file name on the first six characters of the long file name. In folders with more than 300,000 files, the short file names start to conflict after NTFS uses all of the 8.3 names that are similar to the long file names. Repeated conflicts between a generated short file name and existing short file names cause NTFS to regenerate the short file name from 6 to 8 times.
To reduce the time required to create files, you can use the fsutil behavior set disable8dot3 command to disable the creation of 8.3 short file names.
<A HREF="http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/reskit/prkc_fil_gtzp.asp" target="_new">MS–DOS-Readable File Names on NTFS Volumes</A>
<A HREF="http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/reskit/prkc_fil_rbrx.asp" target="_new">File Names in Windows XP Professional</A>
(2) Are there any advantages or disadvantages in doing so?
Advantage: 499 less folders.
Disadvantage: It'll probably take slightly longer to open the single folder than one of those much smaller folders you currently have on the drive. But not significantly, IMHO. I have a movie folder with 167 files that total 20.8GB.
The speed has more to do with the number of files than the total size of the data in the folder. Under FAT32, it takes longer to read many small files than several large files, due to the cluster sizes and slack space. NTFS has less problems in this area, again, due to the smaller default cluster sizes, which allows it to be more efficient.
(3) Also what is largest size of word file can I have?
This one is harder to answer. All the above file sizes should still apply ... however, how large the file can be before Word craps out and refuses to read the file because of a size limitation or bug -- I have no idea. I've never seen a really enormous .doc file, or tried to discover what the limitation might be. Guess you'll have to experiment and discover this one on your own.
Toey
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