There are numerous useful features of NTFS that are not available in FAT file systems, other than journaling.
The ones that I take advantage of most often are:
* Arbitratily long path names.
* Junctions and symlinks.
In addition, there are various security options, including hairy permission structures and encryption.
Also, the journaling and redundancy features of NTFS should not be overlooked. NTFS is much less susceptible to data loss in the event of a crash, power failure, or hang that requires a hard reset.
All of these require overhead. One reason to buy a high end USB stick is so that the overhead of e.g. NTFS is tolerable.
–p.
