Isn't it time, that MS patches out the 32GB FAT32 format limitation (USB flash drive)

[VirtualLarry]

Given that USB flash drives are ubiquitous, and they are starting to come out in higher capacities than 32GB (64, 128, and 256GB, even Kingston has a 512GB), and that NTFS sucks for flash drives, and FAT32 is interchangable, WHY OH WHY does MS still insist on arbitrarily limiting FAT32 formatting to 32GB or smaller partitions?

I know that this was instituted during the XP days, to prevent people from using FAT32 as their primary OS disk format (Which I did, using a Win98se boot disk).

But there is NO technical reason for it. FAT32 supports much larger partitions. The limitation is COMPLETELY ARBITRARY.

Seeing as how we now NEED the ability to format larger FAT32 partitions (in order to re-format USB flash drives), NOW is the time for MS to issue patches for XP, Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8. Or at least, 7 and 8.

 

[SOFTengCOMPelec]

TL;DR
Good idea, YES.
Microsoft will do this to be nice, NO!

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What you are suggesting, sounds like a good idea!

Are Microsoft likely to do something which helps people keep on using older versions of windows.............(sorry, no).

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My opinion is (and I admit to being a huge Microsoft Fanboy (NOT!)), that Microsoft delight in putting in artificial limits, on purpose, to maximise the likelihood of forcing users to upgrade to windows9, windows10, 11, 12 etc.

Microsoft did not even properly patch Windows7 to properly utilise AMD FX cores (they DID release a patch which improves the situation somewhat, but did NOT release the full proper patch until Windows8, probably to force people to go to Windows8).

Microsoft is a VERY good example of why monopolies are a BAD thing for the consumer.

Luckily for me there are various distributions of Linux (and Windows 7 seems ok for playing games, and other general software application usage, etc).

NTFS sucks for flash drives

I like NTFS, is it problematic on flash pen drives ?

 

[Maximilian]

I like NTFS, is it problematic on flash pen drives ?

In my experience it can be if you just yank the drive out, fat32 is fine with this. With NTFS you must eject the drive manually before pulling it out, otherwise there may be problems with it, its hit and miss.

I think exFAT was created to solve this (and get around helping older windows users like you mention rather than just fix FAT32). But i dunno about the state of exFAT and compatibility with everything else.

 

[John Connor]

You should always choose safely remove hardware despite the formatting.

 

[Railgun]

You should always choose safely remove hardware despite the formatting.

If there's nothing waiting to be written, there's no issue. Never in the history of that option existing have I done that. Never in the history of doing that have I ever had corrupted data or a dead stick.

It's along the same lines of a full format on a new drive. But I digress...

 

[SOFTengCOMPelec]

In my experience it can be if you just yank the drive out, fat32 is fine with this. With NTFS you must eject the drive manually before pulling it out, otherwise there may be problems with it, its hit and miss.

I normally always use a belts and braces approach.
I wait until ALL writing is finished.
I even leave it for longer, if I am doing something else anyway.
Then use "safely remove hardware" (if on windows).
(Alternatively, I shut down the computer, and wait until it has fully shut down).

I did not realize NTFS is not such a good idea on USB flash pens.

You should always choose safely remove hardware despite the formatting.

Mostly, I always do.
But occasionally, I just wait considerably longer than the writing takes.
(Many of my flash pens have got flashing leds on them, which go out when writing is finished).

If there's nothing waiting to be written, there's no issue.

I'm happy to be over precautionary, rather than sometimes getting data corruption/losses.

 

[Cerb]

In my experience it can be if you just yank the drive out, fat32 is fine with this. With NTFS you must eject the drive manually before pulling it out, otherwise there may be problems with it, its hit and miss.

With FAT32, there will be problems, just like NTFS. FAT32 just won't know, meaning you also won't know, until you try to work on a corrupt file. You can pull out an NTFS drive just the same as a FAT32 one, so long as writes have completed. If they haven't, FAT32 will gladly feed you 90% of a file, later, as if nothing was wrong, whereas NTFS will know there was supposed to be more written, and do something about it.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Given that USB flash drives are ubiquitous, and they are starting to come out in higher capacities than 32GB (64, 128, and 256GB, even Kingston has a 512GB), and that NTFS sucks for flash drives, and FAT32 is interchangable, WHY OH WHY does MS still insist on arbitrarily limiting FAT32 formatting to 32GB or smaller partitions?

I know that this was instituted during the XP days, to prevent people from using FAT32 as their primary OS disk format (Which I did, using a Win98se boot disk).

But there is NO technical reason for it. FAT32 supports much larger partitions. The limitation is COMPLETELY ARBITRARY.

Seeing as how we now NEED the ability to format larger FAT32 partitions (in order to re-format USB flash drives), NOW is the time for MS to issue patches for XP, Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8. Or at least, 7 and 8.

Because FAT32 needs to die, not expand. 4GB file support, increasing cluster sizes when partition size goes up. 2TB limit even with the biggest clusters. No journaling, no native long name support and so on. Plus whatever is already mentioned.

 

[sheh]

If the problem is just formatting, but using >32GB works fine, why not just use a 3rd party tool? It's a bit more hassle, but many of Windows' built-in tools are lacking, so this wouldn't be a first.

 

[aigomorla]

microsoft is not the same microsoft anymore...

Ugh... im still gaging at the metro style dashboard on server 2012...
Really?!?!? dashboard on server?!?!?!?!

I think there commited to really pissing us off.

 

[ashetos]

You can always format with absolute control of partition offsets via linux. FAT32 has a huge advantage: it is natively supported (high performance and reliable read/write access) in almost all operating systems (linux, bsd, windows, macOS, android, tv sets etc). NTFS is only reliable and fast in Windows, due to its specifications being closed as far as I know.

Also, safe removal of USB media is a must. For instance, the ext4 filesystem silently formats in the background, even if you only read files from it; if you remove the USB stick you risk corruption. Moreover, if the USB stick is doing some garbage collection of NAND flash data you also risk corruption unless it is powered down via safe removal. USB powered hard disk drives also have moving platters and it's best you don't unplug the cable before turning them off.

 

[sm625]

Waht happens if FAT32 is updated to support your 64GB drive, and then you take that drive and plug it into a system that doesnt have the update? Sounds like a nightmare jsut waiting to happen every time you go to get your pictures printed... or go to listen to mp3s in your car, etc etc

 

[ashetos]

Waht happens if FAT32 is updated to support your 64GB drive, and then you take that drive and plug it into a system that doesnt have the update? Sounds like a nightmare jsut waiting to happen every time you go to get your pictures printed... or go to listen to mp3s in your car, etc etc

FAT32 natively supports up to many terrabytes of data. The only hard size limitation I know of is that maximum filesize is 4GiB due to the size variable being 32 bits.

 

[Cerb]

FAT32 natively supports up to many terrabytes of data. The only hard size limitation I know of is that maximum filesize is 4GiB due to the size variable being 32 bits.

Exactly. Windows will read and write to a larger FAT32 partition, it just won't make it easy for you to format it. It was an intentional business/technical decision, not a technical limitation of any kind.

You were supposed to move away form FAT32, you see, but they then kind of changed their minds. So now, NTFS works well for Windows and "desktop" Linux, can work well for the OS X, and that's it. Then, someone had the not-so-bright idea of exFAT...

 

[Dahak]

well you still can format the drives using 3rd party partition tools but is only a limitation in the ms tools that prevent you from formatting it to fat32

Also inst exFat suppose to replace fat32 anyway. That could be the reason ms does not support formatting fat32, to make exFat become more commonplace

 

[ashetos]

exFat would be so much more popular if it had open specifications. Microsoft trying to keep things proprietary is making their products become more irrelevant as the whole world is using more and more open APIs.

 

[Cerb]

exFAT is becoming common by force (SD standard), and was released 6 years after the FAT32 formatting size limit was put in place. I wouldn't give MS the credit to think they had it in the pipe that long, much less had plans to replace FAT32 with another FS other than NTFS, that far back.

 

[ashetos]

Very interesting stuff, any predictions as to whether exFAT will indeed prevail or be replaced by something open?

 

[John Connor]

I have sort of an on topic question that I was thinking of a few days ago. I remember seeing a computer with Win 98se on it and it had several partitions. I believe it had something to do with the hard drive size and Win 98se's ability to see that large of a hard drive. What was Win 98se's drive size limit?

Can you transfer files larger than 2 GB in exFAT?

 

[lamedude]

An unpatched fdisk is limited to 64GB. Then there's the 48bit LBA limit but multiple partitions wouldn't get around that. ExFAT's max file size is the same as NTFS and UDF 2^64–1 bytes.

 

[Cerb]

What was Win 98se's drive size limit?

137GB, I believe. Partitions can't be used to get around it, though.

 

[John Connor]

Then I wonder why the computer I had with Win 98se had so many partitions?

 

[Cerb]

Then I wonder why the computer I had with Win 98se had so many partitions?

No idea. With a new enough chipset and drivers, there shouldn't need to be more than 2 partitions (<137GB boot partition at the beginning, and then a data partition filling the rest). Unless, maybe, they made a bunch of 32GB FAT32 partitions to help use up the space...but I would kind of hope people wouldn't be running 98, by the time such large drives were out there.

 

[jaqie]

I think exFAT was created to solve this

Bingo.

FAT32 is a horrible archaic error prone file system which needed to die with windows M.E. and 98 se.

On my large (and valuable data-wise) memory sticks I use NTFS and have since windows 2000. I also back up their data to my server. I have had zero problems with file loss or errors on them, I cannot say that about fat32.

 

[John Connor]

No idea. With a new enough chipset and drivers, there shouldn't need to be more than 2 partitions (<137GB boot partition at the beginning, and then a data partition filling the rest). Unless, maybe, they made a bunch of 32GB FAT32 partitions to help use up the space...but I would kind of hope people wouldn't be running 98, by the time such large drives were out there.

Well I got that computer a long time ago and the computer was very old. It was a Dell XPS something. It was white probably dated to '99.