Majid was unable to copy a movie from his PC to his newly acquired 32GB USB key, and wondered why. He sent me a screenshot that clearly indicated the problem, as it read “The file is too large for the destination file system.” I replicated the issue quite easily by trying to move a 10GB file to a Fat32 disk, as Fat32 can’t handle any file larger than 4GB.
FAT32 has a 4GB file size limitation, making it tough to copy HD or 4K video footage. In dealing with this it occurred to me that Majid probably isn’t alone, and people might not be aware of the fact that you can format a USB key in Windows using one of three available file systems, and that each system has both advantages and limitations.
My colleague wrote about this in regards to external drives, but he was discussing high-capacity hard drives you plug into your PC. Though Windows file systems work the same regardless of drive type I wanted to expand on his piece a bit by including the system called exFAT, so in this piece I’ll discuss the three file systems, their pluses and negatives, and which one to use according to your needs. Fat32: This is the old standby, and the file system that is usually pre-installed on any USB key you buy from the store. The reason for its ubiquity is that it will work on any PC you plug it into, including both Macs and PCs, Linux boxes, and vintage machines that use USB 2.0.
The biggest limitation is that it has a file size limit of 4GB, which can be a problem with today’s Blu Ray rips and 4K video files. If you’re just sharing small files between computers, however, it’s a fine system to use. ExFAT: This is an updated file system created by Microsoft to replace FAT32. It debuted in Windows Vista SP1, it has a maximum file size of 16 exabytes (EB) (it's going to take us a while to hit that), and it's compatible with both Mac and PC. Though it’s a proprietary Microsoft technology, Apple licensed it for use in its OSes so you’ll see it as an option when formatting a drive in OS X.
Feb 21, 2012 By default, Mac OS X will use the GUID partition table to format the drive. You can use this and still share FAT32 volumes with a PC, but if you'll primarily be using the drive. On the format tool platform in the Device tab section, select the flash drive that you want to create as bootable. Make sure that it is the right device.This makes it easy to reformat computer using USB flash drive. Change your USB storage disk into a bootable USB disk. To do so, you have to empty your flash drive.
For swapping or sharing large files, especially between OSes, exFAT is the way to go. One downside to exFAT is that it doesn’t have any journaling functionality, which is a system whereby any changes to the files on the disk are noted in a log before they’re actually performed. This helps data integrity by recording the changes to files before they take place. The only other downside to exFAT is it’s not supported by Apple’s Time Machine software.
NTFS: This is the newest file system created by Microsoft and is the de facto file system for almost every modern internal hard drive and SSD. The exFAT file system was created by Microsoft as an updated version of FAT32. Its name stands for New Technology File System (clever, no?). Windows can only be installed on an NTFS partition, so chances are your system at home is using it.
The reason it’s the default file system for drives that run the OS is that it has all the technology Microsoft has on tap these days: journaling, no reasonable file size limitations; support for file compression and long file names; file access control for server administrators, and lots more. In a Windows-only household there’s no reason for you not to use NTFS on all your drives, both removable and internal. The catch is, 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.
All versions of Windows since Windows Vista should be able to access a GUID drive. Because OS X is able to partition a GUID partition, we want to partition our large external hard drives with this compatible partition table. So, any modern computer since 2006 should be compatible. GUID doesn’t suffer from the restriction of a maximum partition size of 2TB, so if we have a hard drive larger than 2TB, we won’t be required to build multiple partitions with MBR. Here’s a good quote for other important features regarding GUID (GPT stands for GUID Partition Table).
“On an MBR disk, the partitioning and boot data is stored in one place. If this data is overwritten or corrupted, you’re in trouble. In contrast, GPT stores multiple copies of this data across the disk, so it’s much more robust and can recover if the data is corrupted. GPT also stores cyclic redundancy check (CRC) values to check that its data is intact — if the data is corrupted, GPT can notice the problem and attempt to recover the damaged data from another location on the disk. MBR had no way of knowing if its data was corrupted — you’d only see there was a problem when the boot process failed or your drive’s partitions vanished.” exFAT was released in 2006 as well, but Microsoft added backwards-compatibility to previous Windows versions from before Vista.
The main benefit to it is that it doesn’t have the file size restrictions of FAT32, so individual files with exFAT can be larger than 4GB each. It probably isn’t super important for smaller files, but it could be a necessity for people working on larger files like videos or disk images.
Below is a step-by-step procedure for formatting a large External USB drive which can be used by both a Mac and a PC. This setup will utilize the newest, most fault-tolerant partition tables, and allows for the largest volume and file size capabilities. In my case I am formatting an 8TB Seagate Backup Plus+ USB 3.0 external HDD hard drive. First, plug a new USB drive into a Mac. The Mac will automatically prompt if you want to use the drive as a Time Machine backup Disk – click “Don’t Use”. Open Disk Utility. On the left side of Disk Utility, under External, you should see your drive listed.
Select the “highest-level” of the drive, not the partitions located underneath. In my case, Seagate Backup+ Desk Media. At the top of Disk Utility, click the “Erase” button. Name your disk, such as “JC-External”. Under “Format” drop-down menu, select “ExFAT”.
Under “Scheme” drop-down menu, select “GUID Partition Map”. Click “Erase”. Once the drive has been erased, again, Time Machine will prompt to use as a backup disk – select “Don’t Use”. Click “Done”. Your drive should now be listed under Devices in the Finder. Control-click or right-click on the device in the Finder, and click “Get Info”. You can see that indeed it created an 8TB ExFAT Volume, but the Sharing and Permissions cannot be modified.
Permissions can only be set if the drive is formatted with “OS X Extended”. Also, notice that the Created/Modified dates may not be accurate, however, files and folders contained in the drive will display accurate modified dates/times. One thing to note, is after initially formatting the drive on a Mac, and then attaching the external drive to a Windows 10 PC, the drive may not immediately display with a drive letter by default in the Windows File Explorer. Go into Windows 10 Disk Management and find the drive listed in the discovered drives, but you may find that a drive letter is not associated with the volume. To fix this, in Disk Management, right-click on the large/unidentified new data volume and click “Change Drive Letter and Paths”. Next, click the Add. Button, assign a drive letter (D:) and then OK. You should now find your external drive listed in Windows Explorer and see the files and folders you copied into it while it had been connected to your Mac.