Friday, December 22, 2017

filesystem: FAT32 vs. exFAT vs. NTFS

Why your USB drive's file format matters: FAT32 vs. exFAT vs. NTFS | PCWorld

"FAT32 limitation is that it has a file size limit of 4GB

exFAT: maximum file size of 16 exabytes

NTFS can be read by Mac OSes, but not written to without third-party software. This means if you plug an NTFS-formatted thumbdrive into a Mac you can copy the contents from it, but you can’t alter the contents or write to it, so it’s not good for cross-platform sharing.

In summary, for USB drives, you should use exFAT if you’re in a Windows and Mac environment, and NTFS if you’re only using Windows."

What’s the Difference Between FAT32, exFAT, and NTFS?

FAT32 vs. NTFS vs. exFAT - Difference Between Three File Systems

(more is better)
FAT32 vs. exFAT vs. NTFS USB3 Performance Comparison
When writing a small number of large files to a USB3 disk, the mature FAT32 file system outperforms the exFAT file system by 2% and the NTFS file system by 11% making it clear that the NTFS and exFAT file systems are more optimized for large numbers of small files while the simpler FAT32 file system takes the lead when working with a small number of large files

Differences between FAT and NTFS @

"NTFS has several improvements over FAT such as improved support for metadata and the use of advanced data structures for reliability, and disk space utilization, plus additional extensions such as security access control lists and file system journaling.

Notes for Flash Drives:
  • Formatting the flash drive as NTFS will make it unwriteable on a Mac computer. Most Mac computers can read NTFS, but not write.
  • NTFS is a journaled file system, this creates more read/write activities. Therefore, it MAY decrease life expectancy of your flash drive.

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