Learn the difference between FAT32, exFAT, and NTFS and what works best for formatting your drives

 

Certainly, you have tried a specific flash drive or hard disk and saw that there are several types of formatting systems, perhaps the most prominent of which are FAT32, NTFS and exFAT, and you may be confused between all of these systems and what is the best until you perform the formatting process, so I decided to devote this post For this topic, I intend to understand the concept of each one separately and the difference between them all.




FAT32 system


It is the oldest file system and dates back to the year 1996 with the advent of Windows 95, and came as an alternative to the older file system FAT16 that dates back to 1980, and is used in spaces that exceed 2GB to 32GB as a maximum, and it is characterized by a set of pros and cons, which we will also review.


 The beginning of the FAT 32 system works with all versions of Windows, Mac and Linux systems, and it is a fast and very suitable system for storage capacities that are in small sizes, and it is more prevalent considering its age, but nevertheless it has a set of defects, the most prominent of which is that it is a limited size of only 32 GB, and the thing The other downside is that you cannot store a file larger than 4GB.


Another negative point about this system is that it often lacks the major security features that are widely available in the more recent NTFS file system.


NTFS system


It came directly after the FAT 32 file system and is considered the best in dealing with files that are large in size, it is called the modern file system and appeared immediately after the appearance of consumer versions of the Windows XP operating system, and it is considered safer than its predecessor as it helps in retrieving errors in the event of failure Your computer, and also has the feature of backing up files, encrypting data, and other important things.


Other advantages in the NTFS file system is that it can store files larger than 4GB and are unlimited in size and contain maximum size limits for storage capacities of more than 2 terabytes, but it is also not without some drawbacks, including that it works only with operating systems starting from Windows XP and above, but nevertheless it has limited compatibility with other operating systems, and by default Mac OS X can only read discs, and there are also some Linux distributions that support modification to NTFS drives, but on the other hand there are other distributions that can only read them, add Noting that it does not support converting volumes from NTFS to Fat 32, and in any case, it is better than Fat 32.


 ExFAT system


This system appeared in the year 2006 and was added to the old versions of Windows with updates such as Windows XP and Windows Vista, and it came with the features of the NTFS file system and is light as in the FAT32 system, and it is definitely the best because it supports large files, and is more compatible than NTFS. It supports the OS X operating system, whether at the level of reading or editing, and Linux systems can also identify the drives operating in this system and support them both at the level of reading or modification as well.


Some of the disadvantages of the exFAT file system are that it is not compatible with the Xbox 360 even though the Xbox One is compatible with it, and the PlayStation 3 does not support this system even though the PlayStation 4 supports it, and in general it is preferred to use it with USB flash drives and external hard drives. The other one, especially if you need files larger than 4GB.


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