Convert USB flash drive to NTFS

Media on the basis of solid-state memory (flash drives) have become incredibly popular. They are worn in pockets along with mobile phones, on chains instead of trinkets, on keychains. No doubt, it's convenient - insignificant weight, compact size, versatility of the USB bus. With a USB flash drive at hand, you can at any time rewrite on it from your computer any information or "throw off" the data on the hard drive from a similar media. However, as yet solid-state technology is too young and passes almost the same stages, which, at one time, were inherent only in hard disks.

This is now the amount of hard drives is hundreds of gigabytes and no one doubts which file system to choose - FAT, FAT32, NTFS or compromise exFAT. But with respect to memory devices based on solid-state memory, everything is completely different. For example, many users are interested in whether to reformat the USB flash drive in NTFS. The information given on various Internet pages and forums is often contradictory. Therefore, it is not always clear whether to convert a USB flash drive to NTFS or not.

Most modern solid-state media are already preformatted. And, interestingly, NTFS is very rarely used. In other words, although you can remake a USB flash drive in NTFS in a few minutes, you should first think about why manufacturers are trying to avoid this file system. We will make a reservation that we are talking about flash drives, not SSDs.

Before you tell how to convert a USB flash drive to NTFS, we'll point out the main positive and negative aspects of this operation. Compare the "old woman" FAT32 and the newer NTFS.

One of the most important advantages of the latter is the highest reliability of data storage. According to the standard, with this file system running at once two tables of placement (journaling), which allows to some extent duplicate the registration of transactions performed. Owners of hard drives formatted in NTFS almost never encounter the launch of a disk scanning utility after an incorrect shutdown. Thus, it may seem that if you format the USB flash drive in NTFS, then reliability will increase.

Alas, in this case it is not quite so. Solid-state memory cells are characterized, inter alia, by the number of valid read / write transactions. Thus, the introduction of a duplicating mechanism increases the number of calls to the device, thereby reducing its resource.

Therefore, do not rush to transfer the USB flash drive to NTFS. In addition, "extra" records reduce the overall performance.

One of the obvious advantages - the ability to write files larger than 4 Gigabytes. Only exFAT can boast of this.

Having weighed all the pros and cons, you can start formatting. After connecting the flash drive, open the "My Computer" label, click on the drive letter of the flash drive with the right mouse button and select "Format" from the list of menus. Here you need to specify the desired system. If there is no NTFS in the list, open "Device Manager", go to "Disk devices", for the stick in the "Policy" tab we set optimization for execution.