Technology @lemmy.world jeffw @lemmy.world 1 mo. ago

Microsoft boosts Windows’ FAT32 partition size limit after nearly three decades

www.engadget.com Microsoft boosts Windows’ FAT32 partition size limit after nearly three decades

Microsoft righted an age-old “wrong” (at least for those who geek out about disk formatting) earlier this week. With its latest Windows 11 Insider Canary Preview Build, the company increased the maximum FAT32 partition size limit from 32GB to 2TB when using the command line.

61 comments

This is badly written and ignorant article. Fat32 supports up to 16Tb partition size (depending on cluster size - 2Tb -16Tb).

Its microsoft's windows tools that arbitrarily only allow users to create 32Gb partitions, and it is this that is being changed. This is not a change to Fat32, this is a change to windows. 3rd party tools on Windows and other systems like Linux have long offered more options for partition size.

That its taken to 2024 for Microsoft to fix the command line tool (and still not fix the GUI tools) is ridiculous.
- That's what I thought!
  
  The real issue with Fat32 is the 4gb file size limit.
  
  About 10 years ago, my usb drive was Fat32 by default. I changed it to Ntfs due to Fat32's 4-GB cap. 1080p movies that were 4+ GB were getting more widespread then. I'm using Ntfs till now.
- From the department of temporary fixes, becoming a permanent solution. This guy made FAT32: https://youtu.be/bikbJPI-7Kg?si=orQCjxmnOPAhKIeu
I love how the arstechnica article words it like you will never need FAT32 and it's silly to consider it.

I had to download fat32format I don't know how many times because I needed to format an extra large SD Card or USB drive for some device. Microsoft really shafted exFAT's adoption with their licensing.
- FAT32 is also really simple to implement. Supporting exFAT may require a larger microcontroller with more memory, which results in a more expensive product.
  
  FAT32 is the java of file systems. Works everywhere, on anything. But everyone hates it.
- I personally haven't had to touch it in over a decade, but I guess there's probably some uses for it still, yeah.
  
  Personal computers and flagship phones? Yeah you can probably use exFAT.
  
  Video game consoles and handhelds? Dashcams? Car entertainment centers? Cheap android devices? 100% going to be FAT32 partitioned with a Master Boot Record
- Yep, many smart TVs still only accept FAT32 format. I have to split my HDR videos into multiple files to be able to watch them on TV — because of 4GiB size limit.
- Rufus is your friend
Microsoft can suck my FAT32mm Micropenis
- Ha! Gotem!
Finally, Microsoft caught up to Linux.
- Microsoft caught up to Linux.
  
  They cannot even read (let alone write) any of the FOSS file systems used in Linux.
  
  Thankfully. I wouldn't trust windows with a mounted foreign filesystem if I dual booted.
  
  That’s an odd statement. I had an ext4 partition mounted on a Windows 11 machine just a week ago.
  
  Well, I was referring to Fat32. Probably shouldve stated that before lol. But yeah i absolutely agree.
- Linux still unable to catch up with NTFS when it comes to filename length, sadly. 256 bytes in an era of Unicode is ridiculous.
  
  NTFS also has a 255 limit, but it's UTF16, so for unicode, you will get more out of it. High price to pay for UTF16. Windows basically is moving stuff between UTF16 and ASCII all the time. Most apps are ASCII but Windows is natively UTF16. All other modernly maintained OS do UTF8, which "won" unicode.
  
  The fact that all major Unix (not just Linux) filesystems are to 255 bytes says it's not a feature in demand.
  
  I'd much rather have COW subvolume snapshotting and incremental backup of btrfs or zfs. Plus all the other things Linux has over Windows of course.
  
  Linux might have a similar file name restriction, but what's more important IMO, is the obnoxious file path restrictions NTFS has.
  
  Naming a file less than 255 chars is a lot easier than keeping its path down.
  
  Limiting file name is one thing, but dealing with limited path lengths when trying to move a custies folder full of subdir on subdirs is obnoxious when the share name its being transferred to makes it just too long.
  
  Because it's a shit filesystem and don't have any advantage over, well, anything except being supported in Windows?
I think there was some kind of tool that let you extend it more. I had a 512gb drive on fat32 but it sucked so much I just reformated to ext4 and it performed much better
- Yeah, GUIFormat can do that. Fat32 has its limitations, but I pretty much always use it as the stuff I use micro SD cards in, require it
I don’t know how much it matters though? If I try it on my Windows XP machine I’ll still be stuck with the old limit right?
If someone still use win-dos, 4GB per file and 32GB partition cap is what they deserve.

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