Users of flash drives and memory cards are rarely interested in which file system their drive is formatted on. It's no secret that memory cards are best formatted in the device in which they will be used, and flash drives are the manufacturer's proprietary utility. Problems may arise when trying to copy a file larger than 4 GB to an external drive. Having received a message about a recording error, the user is at a loss, because there is plenty of space on the media. And the thing, most likely, is an outdated file system. The easiest solution for users of modern Windows or Mac OS operating systems is to use the exFAT format. What will it give, we will tell further
FAT32 and its limitations
Until recently, the good old FAT32 was the most popular file system for removable media. Files recorded on such a device were accessible from a computer or smartphone, no matter what operating system it was controlled. It was not a problem to connect a USB flash drive to a DVD player or TV, and use the memory card in a phone, camera, and camcorder.
However, the simple and understandable FAT32 has a number of restrictions, primarily on the maximum size of the partition and a single file. The first limitation is not so strict: in FAT32 you cannot format a partition larger than 2 TB. So far, such flash drives do not exist, even the top winchesters have recently reached this value. It does not involve the creation of larger memory cards and the modern SDXC standard (with an eye on including the exFAT file system, it was developed). It’s premature to say that this is relevant today, but system software developers have to look far ahead so that their products do not become a “bottleneck” that limits the overall performance growth of the system.
But what really creates difficulties when using devices formatted in FAT32 is the restriction on the maximum file size of 4 GB. A full-length film in HD can be many times larger. Many need to transfer larger archives or database files. So the issue of changing the file system is very relevant.
ExFAT: what is it and what are its advantages
The exFAT file system developed by Microsoft is the development of the FAT family optimized for use in removable drives. Here are its main advantages over its predecessors:
- The maximum file size has been increased to today’s unimaginable 16 exabytes (2 64 bytes).
- Cluster size increased to 32 MB.
- The limit on the number of files and folders has been removed.
- Now you can save access rights to files and folders.
Another advantage of exFAT is a more rational use of disk space: a USB flash drive formatted in a new file system will have a slightly larger effective volume than if you format it in FAT32, and even more so in NTFS or HFS +.
Why not NTFS
The benefits we are talking about have long been realized by Microsoft developers on the NTFS file system. Then why do we need some kind of exFAT system? The fact is that NTFS is a journaling file system. The system makes small notes about each read or write operation (operation started - operation completed). This allows, in the event of a failure, to easily localize the problem, to avoid data loss or damage to the file system as a whole. But it takes some time to complete these entries. For fast hard drives, this is an inconspicuous user, and for much less agile flash drives, it’s quite noticeable brakes.
Moreover: the resource of the number of write operations for flash drives is very limited, and it is a pity to use a significant part of it for logging the file system.
Thus, the use of a journaling file system leads to a decrease in the speed of work and a decrease in the resource of flash drives. That is why neither NTFS (Windows), nor HFS + (MacOS), nor ext3 / ext4 (Linux) are used for them.
exFAT on hard drives
It has been said more than once about exFAT that this is a file system for flash drives. And what prevents it from being used on hard drives? The fact is that the shortcomings of the journaled file systems that we talked about above for magnetic hard drives are not critical.
The resource of write cycles is several orders of magnitude larger than that of flash drives, journaling takes almost no time due to the device’s impressive cache, and the gain in disk space is negligible. But reliability, given the huge number of accesses to the drive that the system and programs constantly make, comes to the fore. And according to this indicator, NTFS outperforms exFAT.
Compatibility issues
The main problem of exFAT is that it is a proprietary file system, that is, Microsoft takes a fee from everyone who wants to implement it in their products. Therefore, you should pay attention to whether this format is supported by your operating system and equipment.
ExFAT is fully supported and without any effort by the user on Windows 7 and above. Vista, starting with Service Pack 1, can work with this file system, but with some limitations. For Windows XP (at least Service Pack 2), you will need to download the driver from the Microsoft website.
I took care of my Apple clients: Macs with OS X no lower than 10.6.4 also provide native exFAT support.
But for Linux, there are only unstably working and questionable utilities in terms of licensed cleanliness.
The situation with hardware support is even worse. It is clear that old cameras, players and similar devices do not know about the new file system. But far from all manufacturers of new gadgets want to pay for using this Microsoft development (or take risks by introducing support for the new format without a license). Therefore, it cannot be said about exFAT that it is a universal replacement for FAT32.