A new storage device may need to be formatted before it can be used.
Types of Storage Device
- SD Card
- USB Drive
- SSD
- Hard Drive
- Flash Drive
File System
A way to store and organize data on a hard drive. It offers features such as
- efficiency
- compatibility
- permissions
Windows File System
FAT32
- FAT32 stands for File Allocation Table 32.
- Introduced with Windows 95
- Most compatible format
- Recommend for those who use the drive in multiple devices frequently
Limitations
- Max file size is 4GB
- Will get "File Too Large" if attempt to put file that is more than 4GB
- Max partition size is 2TB
- If having 4TB drive, need to partition into 2 2TB partition separately
exFAT
- Stands for Extended File Allocation Table
- Latest file system from Microsoft (since 2006)
- Improvement to FAT32
- Can support unlimited
- File size
- Partition size
Limitations
- Not as compatible as FAT32
- Compatible with
- all versions of Windows
- MacOS
- Some Linux
- Not compatible
- Older devices
- Some Linux
NTFS
- New Technology File System
- Introduced from Windows XP
- Support unilmited
- File size
- Partition size
- More features than FAT32 and ex-FAT
- In the windows property of a file in NTFS has 2 more tabs compare to others.
- Security tab - Managing folder and file permission
- Previous Versions - Shadowed copies. Automatically saved in a restore point.
- Encryption
Limitations
- Compatibility
- Compatible for Windows
- MacOS and Linux is read-only access
Summary
| FAT32 | exFAT | NTFS | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Compatibility | Most compatible | Less compatible | Least compatible |
| File Limit | 4GB | Infinity | Infinity |
| Partition Limit | 2TB | Infinity | Infinity |
| Hardware | Flash drives, memory cards, external drives | Flash drives, memory cards, external drives | Windows drives only |
| Special feature | None | None | Permission, encryption, previous versions. |
Formatting
format CLI
Windows comes with the format command line utility to format disk drives easily. We can format any disk with the desired file system as follows.
format D: \fs:exFAT
format F: \fs:fat32
format E: \fs:NTFS