FAT 32 or NTFS for external drive

[Albert F]

I have recently purchased an external drive from adata and looking throught the reviews someone mentioned that it should be formated as NTFS. I did that but now I am wandering if I chose the wrong thing... What are the ups and downs?

[mariushm]

Fat32 is limited on Windows to 32 GB. Technically it supports up to 2 TB partitions, but the format in windows will not allow you to format partitions bigger than 32 GB, in order to push you towards NTFS or exFat

 

It also allows only up to 4 GB file sizes (any bigger file can't be copied, you'll get error when writing), it's a limitation of the file system

 

It's much simpler than NTFS so it's still useful when you need it for some devices that are older or simpler (which don't have enough brains or internal memory to support the more complex ntfs or exfat)

For example, BIOS flashback on motherboards allow you to update a bios without the cpu installed in the socket, but the chipset is too basic and the code in bios needs to be small so only fat32 file system is supported on usb sticks.

Same for some older digital cameras that only supported 2-8 GB sdxc cards, like my Canon Powershot A580 digital camera... it only does fat32 afaik.

 

NTFS has no such limitations.

 

Another option is exFat, but this file system may not be supported by some operating systems (like windows xp and so on, windows 8 should be supported)... it's also more optimized for flash media (SD cards)...

[minibois]

FAT32 is not recommended, unless you 'really need it', e.g. because you device only supports that. Reason is because it will only support files up to 4GB in size. For example, if you have a large video that is 4GB+ in size, you simply can't write to it.

That is why ExFAT exists now. This doesn't have this incompatibility.

 

But if you are going to use your device with only Windows devices, there is no reason not to go for NTFS. ExFAT will have greater compatibility with non-Windows stuff though.

Keep in mind formatting means emptying/cleaning the drive, so all files would get deleted.

[Mira Yurizaki]

NTFS is better because macOS and Linux can at least read from them (writing to it may be a different story) and the 4GB file size limitation isn't present.

 

Otherwise if you need to have the drive be accessible outside of macOS, Linux, and Windows, exFAT is gaining more ground as a portable data storage format.

[Mateyyy]

FAT32 is limited to 4GB files, whereas NTFS has no such limitations. Its only advantage, compared to NTFS, would be compatibility, as NTFS only works for both reading and writing with Windows.

[Windows7ge]

Today for the average person the only reason you'll have to want to use FAT32 here is if you need cross-platform inter-compatibility. FAT32 will work across MacOS/Linux/Windows while NTFS is only officially supported on Windows (Linux does have some read/write capability with it, As for MacOS I can't say)

[Bearded_Ed]

Agree with what others have said.

 

If you need NTFS on Mac + PC there are options like "Paragon NTFS" which allows full read write on Mac of NTFS.