New file system for exFAT flash drives - what is it

Users of flash drives and memory cards rarely wonder what file system their drive is formatted with. It's no secret that memory cards are best formatted in the device in which they will be used, and flash drives - the manufacturer's proprietary utility. Problems can occur when you try to copy a file larger than 4 GB on an external drive. Having received the message about the recording error, the user is in perplexity, because there is enough space on the medium. And the case, most likely, in the obsolete file system. The simplest solution for users of modern Windows or Mac OS operating systems is to use the exFAT format. What this will give, we will tell further

FAT32 and its limitations

Until recently, the most popular file system for removable media was the old good FAT32. 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 the USB flash drive to a DVD player or TV, and use a memory card in your phone, camera, camcorder.

However, a simple and understandable FAT32 has a number of limitations, primarily on the maximum size of the partition and the individual file. The first limitation is not so hard: in FAT32 you can not format a partition larger than 2 TB. So far, such flash drives do not exist, even the top hard drives have recently reached this value. It does not presuppose the creation of memory cards of a larger size and the modern SDXC standard (including, in this respect, the exFAT file system was developed). It is premature to say that this is actual today, however, developers of system software have to look far ahead so that their products do not become a "bottleneck" limiting the growth of the system's performance as a whole.

But what really creates difficulties when using devices formatted in FAT32, this limitation on the maximum file size of 4 GB. A full-length film in HD can have a much larger volume. Many need to migrate archives or large 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 optimized for use in removable drives by the development of the FAT family. Here are its main advantages over its predecessors:

• The maximum file size is increased to unimaginable today 16 exabytes (2 ⁶⁴ bytes).
• The cluster size is 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 flash drive formatted in a new file system will have a slightly larger effective volume than if formatted in FAT32, and even more so in NTFS or HFS +.

Why not NTFS

The advantages we are talking about have long been implemented by Microsoft developers in the NTFS file system. Then why do we need any exFAT system? The thing is that NTFS is a journaled file system. About each read or write operation, the system makes small notes (the operation is started - the operation is completed). This allows in the event of a failure to easily localize the problem, avoid losing data or damaging the file system as a whole. But the execution of these records takes some time. For fast hard drives, this is not noticeable to the user, and for much less efficient flash drives there are quite perceptible brakes.

Moreover: the resource of the number of write operations for flash drives is very limited, and it is a pity to use a large 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's why NTFS (Windows), HFS + (MacOS), or ext3 / ext4 (Linux) are not used for them.

ExFAT on hard drives

Above many times it was said about exFAT, that this is a file system for flash drives. And what prevents to use it on hard drives? The fact is that the disadvantages of the journaled file systems, which we mentioned above, for magnetic hard disks are not decisive.

The resource of the write cycles is several orders of magnitude higher than that of the flash drives, the logging does not take much time due to the impressive cache of the device, and the gain in the amount of disk space is negligible. But reliability with the huge number of calls to the drive, which the system and programs are constantly making, comes to the fore. And for this indicator, NTFS wins exFAT cleanly.

Compatibility issues

The main problem with exFAT is that it is a proprietary file system, that is, Microsoft takes a fee from anyone who wants to implement it in their products. Therefore, you should pay attention to whether this format is supported by your operating system and hardware.

In full and without any effort from the user exFAT is supported by Windows 7 and higher. Vista, starting with Service Pack 1, can work with this file system, but with some limitations. For Windows XP (no lower than Service Pack 2), you will need to download the driver from the Microsoft website.

Took care of its Apple customers: on Macs with OS X at least 10.6.4, native exFAT support is also provided.

But for Linux there are only unstable and questionable from the point of view of license cleanliness of the utility.

The situation with equipment support is even worse. It is clear that the old cameras, players and the like devaysy do not know about the new file system. But not all manufacturers of new gadgets want to pay for the use of this development of Microsoft (or risk, introducing support for a new format without a license). Therefore, it is not yet possible to say about exFAT that this is a universal replacement for FAT32.