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Old November 26th 16, 01:14 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10,alt.windows7.general,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
J. P. Gilliver (John)
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Default Can't format 64 GB USB flash drives as FAT32?

In message om, Ed
Light writes:
On 11/25/2016 7:01 PM, Yousuf Khan wrote:

ExFAT has some of the security
descriptors from NTFS, without any of the journaling features which can
be used in fixing filesystem errors. Etc.

Yousuf Khan


I always format usb drives ntfs, because I remember how easily FAT 32
got wrecked when Win 98 crashed. Many errors to fix. I don't know if
it's true, but I read an article saying that ntfs is faster on clusters
of small files than fat 32.


I _once_ had a FAT system crash, and it did indeed right royally screw
up the file system: I think irretrievably, certainly with the knowledge
I had then: directories (including the root) full of filenames with
random characters in them. But I only had it once. (I also can't be
_sure_ it was the file system that was responsible; I to some extent
suspect not, or not entirely, though don't ask me why: I still feel FAT,
being somewhat simpler, is _less_ likely to go wrong in that way. But I
don't know enough about the inner workings of either to be sure.)

I haven't thought of using it on USB sticks - I don't use them enough,
mainly just for moving files between devices (and there the universality
of FAT probably wins) - but I have a simple reason for using NTFS on any
new HD partition: as far as I can see, Everything (the search utility)
doesn't appear to work on FAT. It's a trivial reason, but I find
Everything so useful that it was sufficient to make me change my policy
in this respect.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

A man does not have to be an angel in order to be saint.
Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965)