File system is a collection of algorithms and data structures that perform the translation from logical file operations to actual physical storage of information. In computing, a file system determines how data is stored and retrieved. Show
Without using the file system, information placed in a storage medium would be one large body of data with no way to know where one piece of information stops and the next one begins. In this FAT32 vs exFAT vs NTFS tutorial, you will learn: What is FAT32?FAT32 is one of the oldest of the three file systems available to Windows. It is introduced this system in Windows 95 to replace the FAT16 file system used with older OS systems like DOS and Windows 3. Individual files on a FAT32 drive cannot excessed 4 GB in size, which is maximum. A FAT32 partition should be less than 8 TeraByte (TB). The FAT32 contains four bytes per cluster inside the file allocation table. What is exFAT?The exFAT file system was introduced in 2006 and was added to older versions of Windows with updates to Windows XP and Windows Vista operating systems. It is known as the most updated file system from Microsoft for Windows OS. This system is compatible with flash drives, thumb drives, or memory cards. The full form of exFAT is an extended file allocation table. It has large limits on file and partition sizes. It optimizes exFAT for flash drives. What is NTFS File System?NTFS is a modern-day file system that is used by default used by Windows. When you install Windows 10 into your PC or laptop, it formats your system drive with the NTFS file system. This file system has the file size and partition size limits, which are so huge that you are not likely to run up with disk space. NTFS file system made it’s first debut with Windows XP. It supports file permissions for security, a change in a journal that allows you to recover when your computer crashes, reach disk quota limits, shadow copies of your backup, etc. Workable SolutionsStep-by-step TroubleshootingFormat USB to FAT 32 & NTFSStep 1: Select the USB drive to format; Step 2: Set the drive letter and file system on USB...Convert FAT32 to NTFS without losing dataStep 1: Install and launch EaseUS Partition Master on your computer. Step 2: Select a FAT32 partition.... As a tiny, portable and somewhat capacious removable storage media, the USB flash drive, thumb drive or USB stick seems to be seen everywhere among modern computer users. What are the purposes of owning a flash drive? In general, we use a USB drive mainly for transferring files across operating systems and different devices, or making a bootable USB drive for booting up a failed or crashed computer. In order to make full use of a USB drive's capacity and performance, it's essential to format it with an appropriate, compatible and efficient file system. Do you know what is the best file system for a USB drive? Should you choose FAT32 or NTFS while formatting the USB flash drive? EaseUS Partition Master Free is your optimal choice to format the USB drive to FAT32 or NTFS in Windows 10/8/7: Here we will explain reasons and give answers to whether you should format USB drive to FAT32 or NTFS with the best USB format tool. What are file systems?A file system can be interpreted as an index or database containing physical location of every piece of data on a storage drive. The structure and logic rules used to manage the groups of data and their names is called a file system. A Windows computer, Mac, smartphone, Xbox and any place that stores data must adopt particular kinds of file systems to read, write, store and organize data on various storage media, including a flash drive, memory card, pen drive, hard drive, HDD or SSD. In simple terms, without a matched file system, the media will be totally useless as it cannot be recognized at all by your certain device. There are many different kinds of file systems. Each one has different structure and logic, properties of speed, flexibility, security, size, etc. Following examples are the most commonly acknowledged and used file systems on popular operating systems. Don't miss: completely free FAT32 & NTFS formatter for USB NTFS: (NT File System) It's the default file system for all Windows versions. HFS+: (Hierarchical File System) It's the default file system for macOS versions. APFS: (Proprietary Apple File System) It's developed as a replacement for HFS+ since the release of iOS 10.3 and macOS 10.13. FAT32: (File Allocation Table 32) It's an older standard Windows file system before NTFS. exFAT: (extended File Allocation Table) It's developed based on FAT32 and offers a lightweight system without all the overhead of NTFS. FAT32 vs. NTFS: What's the difference?Now you should have a basic understanding of a variety of file systems in prevalence. When it comes to the final selection for a USB flash drive between FAT32 or NTFS, which one will you choose? Following is an overall explanation of each.FAT32 is compatible with all operating systems since it's a simple file system and has been around for a really long time. In contrast, NTFS is more robust and effective than FAT as it adopts advanced data structures to improve reliability, disk space utilization and overall performance. The application of NTFS has grown but FAT32 is still more universal. What's more, FAT32 can be converted to NTFS but it's getting hard to convert NTFS back to FAT, due to the facts that NTFS has great security, file by file compression, quotas and file encryption. Don't miss: completely free FAT32 & NTFS formatter for USB FAT32 or NTFS? Which one should you choose?If you're looking to decide which file system to use when formatting a USB drive, most of all, you should consider two of the most important aspects: portability and file size limits when made your own decision. As you can judge from the comparison table, FAT32 is almost supported by all operating systems, only to notice that it cannot transfer or store a single file larger than 4GB & max partition size should be under 2TB in size. However, NTFS seems to have no limit in dealing with extremely large files and partition sizes. In one word, it's a good idea to choose your own format like this:If you'd like to use the USB on older computers, or non-PC systems like digital picture frames, TV sets, printers or projectors, choose FAT32 because it is universally supported; In addition, if you're using multiple different operating systems in one same computer, FAT32 is also a nice choice. While if you're using the USB drive as a Windows computer backup drive, to store high-definition videos, movies, pictures and any other large files, at the same time, asking for a high security, choose NTFS. What's the best USB format tool?Once made your own decision as above guided, it's time to format your USB drive a desired file system. No matter it's a newly bought flash drive or a used one, you can directly use a free USB format tool to format the USB drive to FAT32 or NTFS. As a matter of fact, in Windows OS for example, there are many accessible ways for users to format a disk. The most familiar ones are Windows File Explorer, Windows Disk Management and Windows Command Prompt. Here we introduce none of them. Instead, we show you a third-party Windows USB format program - EaseUS Partition Master Free, which will greatly ease your worry of encountering the problem of "Format option is greyed out", "Windows cannot complete the format", etc. What's more, the third-party software is free, user-friendly, powerful and be able to convert FAT32 to NTFS without losing data, which the aforementioned programs cannot handle that. Guide: format USB to FAT 32 & NTFS Step 1. Select the USB drive to format. Connect the USB drive or pen drive to your computer. Download and launch EaseUS partition software. Right-click the USB drive you intend to format and choose "Format". Step 2. Set the drive letter and file system on USB. Assign a new partition label, file system (NTFS/FAT32/EXT2/EXT3/EXT4/exFAT), and cluster size to the selected partition, then click "OK". Step 3. Check "Yes" to confirm formatting USB. Click "Yes" if you see the Warning window. If you have important data on it, back up the data in advance. Step 4. Apply the changes. Click the "Execute 1 Task(s)" button first, and then click "Apply" to format the USB drive. Guide: convert FAT32 to NTFS without losing data Step 1. Install and launch EaseUS Partition Master on your computer. Step 2. On Partition Manager, right-click on a FAT32 partition and click "Advanced", select "NTFS to FAT". Should I choose NTFS or FAT32?The FAT32 file system cannot store individual files larger than 4 GB, while the NTFS file system can. Compared to FAT32, the NTFS file system has higher disk utilization and can manage disk space more effectively. The read and write speeds of NTFS are also faster than that of FAT32.
Why is NTFS more secure?NTFS allows for additional security settings, but there's no secret built-in access to NTFS for anyone. NTFS is very secure, and there are no back-door permissions into the file system. FAT32 does not have any known security vulnerabilities, and FAT32 wasn't designed to be a secure file system.
What is the disadvantage of FAT32?Disadvantages of FAT32
FAT32 does not allow compression using DriveSpace. FAT32 is not compatible with older disk management software, motherboards, and BIOSes. FAT32 may be slightly slower than FAT16, depending on disk size.
Which is better FAT32 or NTFS or exFAT?FAT32 is an older type of file system which is not as efficient as NTFS. exFAT is a modern replacement for FAT 32, and more devices and OS support it than NTFS, but i not as widespread as FAT32. NTFS is the most modern file system. Windows use NTFS system drive and, by default, for most non-removable drives.
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