FAT32 limitations - cross platform data exchange

  • Thread starter Thread starter Martin Trautmann
  • Start date Start date
M

Martin Trautmann

Hi all,

what's the limit of FAT32? AFAIK the 128 GB limit is gone on most newer
Win systems. How about file size?


Example: I got an external USB2/FW400 drive with 250 GB. I wanted to put
backup data into a DVD disk image (> 4 GB), port it to a Win PC and burn
a DVD.

There's bigger files (mainly databases, probably videos to come)
which I don't want to split.

Is there a file size limit of former 2 GB, now 4 GB or anything else?

Is there a better file system for cross platform usage?


Mac takes HFS+
Mac may read NTFS, but maynot write it.

Mac option is UFS - which is hardly known on Win!?
I might use a HFS driver for Win instead.

I don't know about UFS2/EXT2/EXT3, neither on Mac, nor on PC. However,
Linux compatibility via USB/FireWire would be interesting.


What's your recommendation? Thanks,
Martin
 
FAT32 still have 4 GB file size limit, no matter what OS.

In Win9x it's limited further to 2GB.
 
[This followup was posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage and a copy
was sent to the cited author.]

t- said:
Hi all,

what's the limit of FAT32? AFAIK the 128 GB limit is gone on most newer
Win systems. How about file size?
Click to expand...

*ALL* versions of FAT (12-, 16-, and 32-bit) use a 32-bit file-size
value in the directory. This limits individual files to 4G. If you want
files over 4G, you must move to NTFS or other.
 
Previously Martin Trautmann said:
Hi all, [...]
I don't know about UFS2/EXT2/EXT3, neither on Mac, nor on PC. However,
Linux compatibility via USB/FireWire would be interesting.
Click to expand...

Linux has no issues with ext2/3, ReiserFS, ... on USB and FireWire.
Move it around all you want, it works. The limits are consistent.
The only problem may be if you use older kernels or programms
without large file support. In that case files >2GB will be
problematic. A curent 2.4.x or 2.6.x kernel will fix the
limit in the filesystem. If an application does not have large
file support, it can often be added by defining one symbol and
recompiling.

Arno
 
The easy way is to split the file on unix, copy bits to USB, then join on
windows:
copy /b U:big.iso.* big.iso
 
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