Whether you are formatting an internal drive, an external drive, a USB drive or an SD card, Windows gives you the choice of using three File Systems – Different File Systems: NTFS, FAT32 and exFAT. The Format window in Windows doesn’t explain the difference, but in this article it does.
The File System represents the ways to organize drives. It specifies how data is stored on the drive and what types of information can be attached to files — filenames, permissions, and other attributes. Windows supports three different File Systems. NTFS is the most modern File System. Windows uses NTFS for system drives and defaults to most non-removable drives.
FAT32 is an older File System, not as efficient as NTFS and does not support a large feature set, but offers greater compatibility with other operating systems. exFAT is a modern replacement for FAT32 — and more devices and operating systems support it than NTFS — but it’s not nearly as popular as FAT32.
NT File System (NTFS)
NTFS is the modern File System that Windows likes to use by default. When you install Windows, it will format your drive with File System NTFS. NTFS has very large theoretical partition and file size limits, so you won’t have to worry about this. NTFS first appeared in consumer versions of Windows with Windows XP, although it originally debuted with Windows NT.
NTFS includes modern features not available for FAT32 and exFAT. NTFS supports file permissions for security, logs can help quickly recover from errors if your computer crashes, hidden copies for backups, encryption, disk quota limits, hard links And many other features. These features are important to the operating system drive — especially file permissions.
Your Windows system partition should be NTFS. Despite its many advantages, the weakness of NTFS is compatibility. It will work with all versions of Windows and Windows XP — but it has limited compatibility with other operating systems. By default, Macs can only read NTFS drives, not write them. Some Linux distributions may allow NTFS write support, but others only allow read. None of Sony’s PlayStation versions support NTFS. Even Microsoft’s Xbox 360 can’t read NTFS drives, although Xbox Series X, S, and One can. Other devices are even less likely to support NTFS.
Compatibility: Works with all versions of Windows, but read-only with Mac by default and with some other Linux distributions. Other devices — with the exception of Microsoft’s Xbox One — may not support NTFS.
Limit: There is no actual file size or partition size limit.
Ideal use: Use NTFS for Windows system drives.
File Allocation Table 32 (FAT32)
FAT32 is the oldest of the three File System available for Windows. It was introduced in Windows 95 to replace the older File System FAT16 used in MS-DOS and Windows 3.
File System FAT32 also has advantages and disadvantages. The biggest advantage was that because it was so old, FAT32 became the de facto standard. The flash drive you buy will usually be formatted with FAT32 for maximum compatibility on not only modern computers but also on other devices like consoles and anything with a USB port.
However, it also has fatal limitations. Single files on a FAT32 drive can’t weigh more than 4GB — that’s the maximum. A FAT32 partition must also be less than 8TB, admittedly limited to those of you using ultra-high capacity drives.
Although FAT32 is suitable for USB flash drives and other external media. But it lacks the permissions and other security features built into the more modern NTFS File System. Additionally, modern versions of Windows can no longer be installed to a drive formatted with FAT32; they must be installed to an NTFS-formatted drive.
Compatibility: Works with all versions of Windows, Mac, Linux, consoles and practically anything with a USB port.
Limit: Maximum file size 4GB, maximum partition size 8TB.
Ideal use: Use it on removable drives where you need maximum compatibility with the widest range of devices, provided you don’t have any files 4GB or more in size.
Extended File Allocation Table (exFAT)
File System exFAT was introduced in 2006 and was added to older versions of Windows with updates to Windows XP and Windows Vista. exFAT is optimized for flash drives — designed to be a File System as light as FAT32, but without the extra features of NTFS and without the limitations of FAT32.
Like NTFS, exFAT has huge limits on file and partition sizes, allowing you to store files much larger than the 4 GB that FAT32 allows.
Although exFAT is not completely superior to FAT32 compatibility, it is more widely compatible than NTFS. While macOS offers read-only support for NTFS, Macs provide full read-write support for exFAT. exFAT drives can be accessed on Linux by installing the appropriate software. PlayStation5 and PlayStation 4 support exFAT; PlayStation 3 does not. Xbox Series X, S, and One support exFAT, but Xbox 360 does not.
Compatibility: Works with all versions of Windows and modern versions of macOS, but requires additional software on Linux. More devices support exFAT than support NTFS, but some — especially older ones — may only support FAT32.
Limit: There is no actual file size or partition size limit.
Ideal use: Use it when you need a larger file size and partition limit than FAT32 and when you need greater compatibility than NTFS. Assuming that every device you want to use the drive with has exFAT support, you should format your device with exFAT instead of FAT32.
NTFS is ideal for internal drives, while exFAT is generally ideal for flash drives. However, sometimes you may need to format an external drive with FAT32 if exFAT is not supported on the device you need to use.