mike13 Posted November 12, 2013 Share Posted November 12, 2013 Should a flash drive be formatted in Fat32, which I think is the default, or should it be formatted as NTSF ?? Or doesn't it really matter. Thanks, Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaclaz Posted November 12, 2013 Share Posted November 12, 2013 It depends on a number of factors. "stock" flash USB stick normally come formatted as "super-floppy" (i.e. NOT partitioned) and FAT32. FAT32 cannot host files larger than around 4 Gb. To boot from the stick it is usually needed to have it partitioned. If you plan to boot from it some Linux OS, some of them do not have kernel level (or initial) support for NTFS. FAT32 drivers have been dumbed down by MS, so NTFS is generally speaking, better performing, and it can host files larger than 4 Gb BUT, depending on some settings may wear out the device prematurely, see: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/125116-fat16-vs-fat32-vs-ntfs-speed-on-usb-stick/ BUT there are strategies to format the stick providing a slightly better performance: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/151798-does-fat32-align-its-clusters/ http://reboot.pro/topic/16775-discover-allocation-unit-and-other-information-of-ufd-under-windows/ http://reboot.pro/topic/16783-rmprepusb-faster-fat32-write-access-on-flash-memory-drives/ Finally newish USB 3 "high end" USB sticks are not anymore flash dries, but rather (small) SSD's with a USB3 to SATA bridge. jaclaz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike13 Posted November 12, 2013 Author Share Posted November 12, 2013 Thanks jaclaz for the reply and links to read, but I am not sure I understand what I read. First of all, I have never BOOTED from a flash drive. Not sure how to do that. I am confused about the part that FAT 32 will only host 4GB at most, because I have a 16 Gig flash drive that I know I have saved files to that were larger than 4 Gig. As far as the drive wearing out quicker if you format it as NTSF probably does not matter much as I only used these drives maybe once a week or less. With that said, I guess I should format them as NTSF in the future ?? Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kelsenellenelvian Posted November 13, 2013 Share Posted November 13, 2013 (edited) He means that fat32 systems cannot handle SINGLE files that are 4+ gigs.(That has been a very long known limitation.) Edited November 13, 2013 by Kelsenellenelvian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaclaz Posted November 13, 2013 Share Posted November 13, 2013 Again, it depends.If you plan to use them only on newish MS OS's, you should go for exFAT which is faster and allows for large files. (but you loose compatibility with older systems).If you need the wider compatibility, FAT32 is better, and you can (if you want) partition it and optimize the placement of the filesystem to gain some beter performance, but you won't be able to host on that filesystem files larger than 4 Gb (yes, of course you can have more than 4 Gb in different files, but the size of any single file must be smaller than 4 Gb).If you want large file and "wide enough" compatibility, and overall a "more solid" filesystem[1], go for NTFS.Always use "safe remove" or equivalent before removing a USB stck from a running PC.jaclazN.B.:[1] the attribution of "more solid" in this context does NOT mean that I want to initiate the usual FAT32 vs. NTFS, Dracula vs. Mickey Mouse, Godzilla vs. King Kong flamewar , it is only meant to highlight some features of the NTFS that make in certain circumstances easier to recover data from a crashed filesystem . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NixFix Posted February 26, 2014 Share Posted February 26, 2014 I've got my external hard drive (which I use for back-uping some ISO files) formatted into NTFS and a flash drive in FAT32 because I usually have to put it into Macs. My friend has a hard drive partitioned - half in NTFS and half in FAT - pretty handy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaclaz Posted February 26, 2014 Share Posted February 26, 2014 My friend has a hard drive partitioned - half in NTFS and half in FAT - pretty handy.A cousin of mine has a USB hard disk that is roughly 1/3 NTFS, 1/3 FAT32 and 1/3 EXT4, even handier. jaclaz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pointertovoid Posted March 19, 2014 Share Posted March 19, 2014 Go NTFS if you can, which nearly means, if no Linux nor camera must use the card.If a file write goes wrong - not uncommon with removeable media - you lose one file with NTFS, but many or all with FAT32.Also, NTFS aligns naturally the clusters on Flash lines and pages if starting the volume at 1MiB boundaries, while Fat32 alignment is difficult. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaclaz Posted March 19, 2014 Share Posted March 19, 2014 If a file write goes wrong - not uncommon with removeable media - you lose one file with NTFS, but many or all with FAT32.Hmmm. Apodictical/anecdotal at it's best. Also, NTFS aligns naturally the clusters on Flash lines and pages if starting the volume at 1MiB boundaries, while Fat32 alignment is difficult.Not really, we have a tool doing it (JFYI) : http://reboot.pro/topic/16775-discover-allocation-unit-and-other-information-of-ufd-under-windows/ http://reboot.pro/topic/16783-rmprepusb-faster-fat32-write-access-on-flash-memory-drives/ jaclaz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pointertovoid Posted March 21, 2014 Share Posted March 21, 2014 Very nice! At that timehttp://www.msfn.org/board/topic/151798-does-fat32-align-its-clusters/I had to try many alignments by hand, guessing the proper correction by Atto's curve aspect.An automatic tool for it is readlly welcome. Well done! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
submix8c Posted March 21, 2014 Share Posted March 21, 2014 (snicker...) It's been around for quite some time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ponch Posted March 21, 2014 Share Posted March 21, 2014 A cousin of mine has a USB hard disk that is roughly 1/3 NTFS, 1/3 FAT32 and 1/3 EXT4, even handier. The downside is that (statistically) you end up with 1/3 of the free space in each partition and that can potentially be an annoyance when your drive fills up and you need to shift big amounts of data. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaclaz Posted March 22, 2014 Share Posted March 22, 2014 (edited) A cousin of mine has a USB hard disk that is roughly 1/3 NTFS, 1/3 FAT32 and 1/3 EXT4, even handier. The downside is that (statistically) you end up with 1/3 of the free space in each partition and that can potentially be an annoyance when your drive fills up and you need to shift big amounts of data.Nahh, that cousin of mine is a yute :http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104952/quotes?item=qt0404568that uses the stick just to avoid loosing his keys, all partitions on it are empty. If it was not clear , that cousin is a fictional character that I invented only to reply to the purely anecdotal contribution by NixFix. jaclaz Edited March 22, 2014 by jaclaz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MHz Posted March 22, 2014 Share Posted March 22, 2014 Fat32? No master file table. Reminds me of having a faster internet connection over a decade ago. My hope in the human race is way past lost. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaclaz Posted March 22, 2014 Share Posted March 22, 2014 Fat32? No master file table. Reminds me of having a faster internet connection over a decade ago. My hope in the human race is way past lost. So, something that has worked for at least 15 years (within it's limitations) is to be replaced by NTFS even when there is no need whatsoever of the NTFS features?Isn't it surprising that exFAT is still FAT (and not MFT) based? jaclaz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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