What file format is your thumb drive?

[Happy Hopping]

http://www.irongeek.com/i.php?page=security/usb-flash-thumb-drive-ntfs-filesystem

some1 done a bunch of test on formatting his Thumb drive under FAT and NTFS, but he's using Norton AV and XP Pro. There shouldn't be any difference between Win 7 vs. XP Pro on speed writing, but Norton AV could slow things down

However, in that article, he said NTFS does more write on the thumb drive than FAT, is that true? Is that also the reason that all the flash drive that I bought all format in FAT32? I owned a Hyper X USB 2.0 from kingston 5 yr. ago, it's in FAT32, and I just got a Hyper X USB 3.0 Kingston, again it's in FAT32

On the other hand, if you have file bigger than 4 GB, I assume you can't copy it to a 64GB USB 3.0 FAT32 thumb drive, although I don't have big files on that drive now, I could have it in the future, so how much lifespan do I lost if I re-format the Flash drive to NTFS?

 

[mhenley]

I have one of the first few capless Sandisk 32GB flash drives, formatted NTFS (because I do transfer files larger than 4GB regularly). I don't think the NTFS format will decrease lifespan, and if it does then it won't be by a noticable, or perhaps even quantifiable amount. I know that flash chips do have a finite number of writes, but I have never personally lost a USB flash drive due to that limit.

 

[sybreeder]

The best file format so far for Thumb drives is exFat in case of WinXP/Win7. It's faster than ntfs and can work with big files - over 4gb
On my Patriot Supersonic 16GB i use exFAT
On thumg drive that is bootable i use Fat32

 

[HobartTas]

Greetings

However, in that article, he said NTFS does more write on the thumb drive than FAT, is that true?

It was more the case that NTFS does a lot of small writes (for journalling and suchlike) which is why it wasn't implemented for floppy disks as the slow head movements would have rendered it painfully slow, other than that it should be OK for removable disks but make sure you do the windows ejection before you pull it out.

Is that also the reason that all th...ope this may be of some assistance. Cheers

 

[PigLover]

...ExFAT ... but its also proprietory and not widely implemented outside the Microsoft world...

I don't know why you would say that. exFAT is probably the most widely implemented format available. From a practical perspective, it is certainly supported by all versions of Windows, all current versions of OSX (max) and all current versions of Linux.

Further, exFAT has been recently licensed by several major CE manufacturers including Canon, Nikon, Red and most recently Sharp. This is for use primarily in video cameras. They are doing this because most video cameras currently use FAT and break their larges files into chunks, which require custom "import" programs to put them back together again.

If you want the most practically compatible file system for a large USB device the simplest and most compatible choice is currently exFAT.

 

[devman]

If you want the most practically compatible file system for a large USB device the simplest and most compatible choice is currently exFAT.

exFAT has patents on it that prevent it from shipping with any major distros. It can be installed by the user though. Perhaps if MS would release the patent to the open source community it would be a different story, but until then I wouldn't call that compatible. UDF on the other hand is universally enabled on all major OSes.

 

[PigLover]

exFAT has patents on it that prevent it from shipping with any major distros. It can be installed by the user though. Perhaps if MS would release the patent to the open source community it would be a different story, but until then I wouldn't call that compatible. UDF on the other hand is universally enabled on all major OSes.

The implementation is GPL v3 licensed...and trivial to install. With almost all of the video camera manufacturers (except Sony, for now) licensing exFAT its likely to become even more "universal" than UDF claims to be.

 

[Happy Hopping]

at wiki, it says

The standard exFAT implementation only uses a single file allocation table and free space map. FAT file systems instead used alternating tables, as this allowed recovery of the file system if the media was ejected during a write (which occurs frequently in practice with removable media)

now, I don't usually eject my thumb drive, but it has happened before. So if I use exFAT, is that a bit dangerous w/ just 1 FAT? So:

1) What is the exact command that I should use in Win 7 Pro prior to eject under exFAT or NTFS?

2) As we all know, if it were a hard drive, FAT writes files to the inner most tracks, then expand outwards, whereas NTFS doesn't do the above.

So how does exFAT works on writing files on a thumb drive? Does it still write files in the inner tracks? But we have no "tracks" on a thumb drive though

in the end, for a exFAT file format w/ no backup FAT, would it be safer to use NTFS?

 

[mwroobel]

I carry 2 with me at all times, a 64GB NTFS USB3 and a 32GB HFS+ USB2.

 

[HobartTas]

I don't know why you would say that. exFAT is probably the most widely implemented format available. From a practical perspective, it is certainly supported by all versions of Windows, all current versions of OSX (max) and all current versions of Linux.

Further, exFAT has been recently licensed by several major CE manufacturers including Canon, Nikon, Red and most recently Sharp. This is for use primarily in video cameras. They are doing this because most video cameras currently use FAT and break their larges files into chunks, which require custom "import" programs to put them back together again.

If you want the most practically compatible file system for a large USB device the simplest and most compatible choice is currently exFAT.

Why did I say that, well probably with what you have now just explained I was mostly wrong on this aspect and this was due to the fact that I formed my opinion on just the following observations

(1) I wasn't aware that exFAT's penetration had increased to such a degree, most of the stuff I use still comes in FAT32 format,

(2) I haven't checked what format the 32GB SD card in my cheap low end camcorder uses as I transfer stuff off it using the USB cable but it may well be exFAT but I wouldn't be aware of it even if it was and to go over the 4GB limit even if it was FAT32 I would probably have to record for about two hours continuously,

(3) also even devices that are only a couple of years old e.g. TV's and digital TV set top boxes that can record to or play movies on thumb drives do not recognise exFAT formats.

So you can see why I initially formed the view that exFAT wasn't of any great significance.

I was writing primarily about UDF in transferring stuff between OS's using things like external hard drives and the OP was probably asking for transferring stuff probably between an OS and other devices which in most cases won't support UDF anyway so I now agree with you that exFAT is probably the better choice if can be used. However, knowing that UDF may also exist in addition to exFAT is a usefull additional choice available.

I'm surprised the manufacturers just didn't go with UDF instead of exFAT as they wouldn't need to license anything. Is exFAT that much better?

As far as the "trivial to install" comment goes I would say that most people using those other OS's that currently don't have it installed are most likely unaware that it even exists which is probably why they don't install it regardless of whether it is trivial or not.

Cheers