FAT32 Info Please?

  • Thread starter Thread starter bob
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bob

Hi,
I was wondering if anyone can explain to me why there
is the Windows XP limit of the FAT32 filesystem to 32 GB?
 
It's not really a limitation, it's just that it cannot format a FAT32 drive
bigger than 32 GB. It can still work with such drives, though, so you can
format it using another tool, such as Fdisk from a Windows 98 boot disk, and
it will work fine in XP.
 
Because over 32 Gigs, FAT32 is a very inefficient file system. The larger
the drive size, the larger the "cluster size" becomes. Cluster size is how
much space is allocated any time data is written to the drive. So, say
your cluster size is 8 kb. You save a 1 kb Notepad file to your hard drive.
It takes up 8 kb (minimum cluster size). Save a file that's 8193 bytes in
size (8 kb + 1) then its going to take up 16 kb of drive space, just for
that one extra byte. For a drive of 32 Gig, the cluster size is 64K.
Very, very inefficient.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;140365
Default Cluster Size for FAT and NTFS
 
Ahhhhh really confused. I understand that it is an
inefficient file format for hard drivers above 32 gigs.
Now after reading that other persons post, what I am
wondering is why the Win XP Formating tool put that limit
on it and not on Win 98. Was it because they didn't
decide it was insufficent till now?
 
Because at the time of Windows 98, the only formats that
Windows 98 understood were FAT16, and FAT32. FAT16 is
even more restrictive compared to FAT32, so it's really
the lesser of two evils.

XP can use NTFS (NT File System, used by the NT line of
OS's such as NT 4, Windows 2000, XP, and Windows Server
2003). This file system is much much more efficient at
high capacities compared to FAT32, and has other benefits
as well.

The only real reason to use FAT32 is if you are dual-
booting between XP and Windows 95/98/ME, otherwise at
anything above 16-20 GB or so, NTFS is vastly superior.
 
Because 98 only supports FAT or FAT32, so it had to allow larger sizes. You
can use a Win98 Startup disk to format a drive larger than 32 Gig and XP
will use it. It just won't format a drive larger than 32 gig on its own.
 
Thanks a lot people for clearing that up for me.
-----Original Message-----
Ahhhhh really confused. I understand that it is an
inefficient file format for hard drivers above 32 gigs.
Now after reading that other persons post, what I am
wondering is why the Win XP Formating tool put that limit
on it and not on Win 98. Was it because they didn't
decide it was insufficent till now? file
to your hard drive. drive
space, just for
.
Click to expand...
 
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