exFAT Versus FAT32 Versus NTFS

Contributed by David Kirk

Microsoft introduced the new exFAT file system with Vista SP1. Extended File Allocation Table (exFAT) is the successor to the old FAT32 file system. What are the advanatages and disadvantages to this new file system? What are the differences between exFAT and FAT32? When is exFAT preferred over NTFS?

Microsoft released the exFAT file system with Vista SP1. The file system that had been rumored to be released with the original Vista was finally available to the public on a wide scale. This article will explain the issues that exist with FAT32 that exFAT has been designed to fix. Surprisingly to many people, exFAT even may be better than the much loved NTFS in some circumstances.

FAT32 is the file system with which most windows users are most familiar. Windows first supported FAT32 with Windows 95 OSR2 and increased support for it through XP.

FAT32 issues and problems -

By default windows systems can only format a drive up to 32 GB. Additional software works around this issue. When formatted at these bigger sizes, FAT32 becomes increasingly inefficient.

The maximum file size on a FAT32 formatted drive is around 4 GB. With DVD and high resolution DVD formats now available, this limit is commonly reached.

Dealing with fragmentation and free disk space calculations can become painfully resource intensive in large FAT32 systems.

A FAT32 directory can have 65,536 directory entries. Each file or subdirectory can take up multiple entries; therefore, FAT32 directories are limited with how many files it can hold.

exFAT Advantages

File size limit is now 16 exabytes.

Format size limits and files per directory limits are practically eliminated.

Like HPFS, exFAT uses free space bitmaps to reduce fragmentation and free space allocation/detection issues.

Like HTFS, permission systems should be able to be attached through an access control list (ACL). It is unclear if or when Vista will include this feature, however.

exFAT was first released with CE 6.0 but finally hit the mainstream with Vista SP1. Obviously, exFAT has several strengths over FAT32. Then why In the past have most power-users of Microsoft systems have opted to format/convert to a NTFS file system instead?

Interestingly enough, exFAT is not used and was not designed for formatting hard drives. It is only recommended in flash memory storage and other external devices only. This is why it is currently not considered a huge competitor to NTFS on hard drives.

However, exFAT should be a true competitor to NTFS on flash-based systems with limited processing power and memory. NTFS on flash memory has been known to be inefficient for quite some time. exFAT’s smaller footprint/overhead makes it ideal for this purpose. Of course, only if your definition of “ideal” allows software to be proprietary and not open source.

Vista will happily read FAT, exFAT, and NTFS from flash. ReadyBoost will not work with exFAT formatted flash drives in Vista, however. Windows 7 will read all three formats and can ReadyBoost exFat flash drives. Modern versions of OS X after Snow Leopard (10.6.5) added exFat read and write capabilities.

In conclusion, FAT32 is a simple system. The simplicity of FAT32 causes it to lose efficiency at large sizes but allows it to run with less resources. The complexity of NTFS increases features but requires more memory and processing power. exFAT is an improved and more complex system than FAT but is designed for flash drives only.

This article has been updated to include information about Windows 7 and OS X.

75 Comments -

sheena said on November 8, 2008

if i format my external hdd to exfat 32 kilobytes-to back up my ps3; can re-format it back to NFTS back up my computer? will this cause any problems if i back up my pc with a formated external hdd of exfat 32 kilobytes??

thanks!
Amnuay M. said on November 12, 2008

I think the main problem for me is exFAT is not supported in XP….
morten said on December 21, 2008

and ps3 users can`t use exFat
Jonadab said on December 23, 2008

What I really want from Microsoft is support for the major filesystems other operating systems use. Cheifly I am concerned with ext2/3, UFS, and HFS+. As it stands, Windows just does not work very well in a multi-OS environment. OS X can read FreeBSD filesystems. FreeBSD has no trouble reading Linux stuff. Linux can read Mac stuff. They all know how to read data from the other systems. Windows is the only one that doesn’t.

All the other systems can read Windows stuff too, and even write FAT32 (write support for NTFS is theoretically available but not very robust last I checked). Nonetheless, at least the other systems can *read* NTFS. But can Windows read stuff from other systems? No.

So instead of doing that, they go and invent a whole *new* filesystem, with no significant features that aren’t in at least one of the existing filesystems. Okay, yeah, so there are a handful of special situations where exFAT is a better compromise than FAT32 or NTFS. But on the whole it’s just that — a compromise between those two existing choices, not really better than either of them in the general case. Meh.

If they were going to develop a *new* filesystem, why not give it some *new* capabilities, like inodes to abstract the stored files away from their directory entries so that we don’t have to reboot all the time for minor updates? How about automatic versioning, like VMS has had since Bill Gates was working out of a garage? Now *that* would be useful.
Anonymous said on December 29, 2008

You are right in what you say with regard to Windows not being able to read from or write to HFS+. But free software is available for ext2/3 (LINUX) partitions from the following site: http://www.fs-driver.org. As with most stuff related to Linux it is free. I have been using it myself for several years now (dual-boot windows and Linux system). I’m not sure whether it will read across networks but it does the job fine locally.
Tracy said on February 12, 2009

exFAT is supported in XP sp3
paolo said on February 15, 2009

what is exNTFS? what is the best format for vista 64bit?
z0iid said on March 27, 2009

OS X doesn’t read NTFS….
z0iid said on March 27, 2009

well, supposedly it does, but my girlfriends macbook won’t read my external hd that is ntfs formatted. i have to copy stuff to a usb key that uses FAT.
A Known Mouse said on April 14, 2009

Windows 7 allows readyboost from exFAT, bigger readyboost :D
luquien said on April 16, 2009

No such thing. It’s exFAT or NTFS. For the Vista operating system drive, stick with NTFS (not sure Vista will even install on exFAT due to lack of security)

One place I can see exFAT coming in handily is on a cache drive for a Windows Media Service Server or IIS7 box where no security, high speed, and almost unlimited number of files, comes in great.
Ricardo said on July 15, 2009

Awesome! I had a 120gb pen drive and converted to ntfs and it stopped working, I’m using the the exfat and had no problem in Vista SP! and in XP I downloaded a file driver and I can use it in XP. No problem. Thanks to this I can use my 120gb pen drive.

How did they format a 120gb pen drive I don’t know and it read FAT file system. So I converted it to NTFS and did could not format complete, NOW exFAT I have no porblem.
Fred said on July 19, 2009

“- Like HPFS,…
- Like HTFS,… ”

What are HPFS and HTFS?
Anonymous said on August 4, 2009

Not sure if this is directly related to the Vs topic here, but it is the closest I can find so far.

exFAT is a bit odd. I have a 16GB Flash drive. I converted it to 16GB exFAT via Win7. When I tried to copy files (about 4 GB total), I had an error saying that I needed another 300MB, but, the disk had 15.7GB free space. So I converted it to 8GB exFAT.

The Flash Drive will not format to NTFS in XP, Vista nor Win7, and FAT32 is useless.

Can anyone please explain how to make my 15.7GB Flash Drive save a single 15.7GB file using exFAT?

Thank you
Myrddin said on September 22, 2009

After formatting you’re not going to have as much space free, no matter which format you use so, you’re probably not going to get that file onto that flash drive if those are your two sizes.
Captain Meatshield said on October 27, 2009

But only by hunting down and downloading an update.
Psychologist Sydney Therapist said on December 31, 2009

thanks. good explanation. trying to reformat our new WD elements drive to FAT to go with a my book world II and it only offered exFAT, not FAT on my Vista system. This clears it up.
tloa said on January 13, 2010

Vista can format it to FAT32 when u have a hard disk 32GB or less, just right click on “Computer” and choose Manage, go to manage disk and make a partition 32GB, now you will able to format it in FAT32, i think this info might be very usefull to people that want to use a external HDD for PS3 because PS3 only reads FAT32.
gozya said on February 11, 2010

Will exFat work on other Windows OS’s like XP or 7?
Anonymous said on February 16, 2010

My pendrive 240gb kingston, computer to pendrive copy to not open file, plz soluation
Mawardi said on March 2, 2010

I used xp after updated for support exfat. My pendrive 120gb sony, after transfer data , i just can open file small size below 5-7mb (doc,xls,mp3, etc) and can`t for big size (eg: movie (rmvb, avi,dat),when i try many time, my pc not responding. plz soluation

thanks!
Anonymous said on March 18, 2010

Hi my name is naveed, can somebody help me with my external hard drive WD 1.5tb.
I want to connect my hd with my tv via usb . but ma tv does not support ntfs so tried to format my external hard drive to fat32, i have win vista on my laptop so when ever i try to format it give me only 2 options ntfs or exfat but i need fat32 .dont know wot to do
Plz Help

THank you
Anonymous said on March 20, 2010

I have a 30 Gig usb flash drive that got pulled out before the ’safely remove usb mass storage’ button was clicked. The usb doesn’t work any more and cannot be formatted via windows xp or by using msdos. It is possible to retrieve use of the flash drive, I dont care about the data on the drive, but am not sure what to do. Any ideas?
King said on March 22, 2010

My 40GB kingston pendrive have exFAT file system. When I copy anything in it, all the contents of the folder get removed automatically leaving the folder only, and when I copy .rar or .zip files into it, and then open it i receive a message “this archive is either in unknown format or damaged……”
What should I do?
suomynonA said on March 29, 2010

This sentence alone has convinced me to format my external harddrive with exfat:

“The complexity of NTFS increases features but requires more memory and processing power.”
Robert said on April 12, 2010

There are also another drivers that allows you to work with ext2/3 filesystems on Windows. As per my experience, the best is available at http://www.ext2fsd.com/ (free, GNU/GPL license). (For me, it seems even better than driver from http://www.fs-driver.org.)
Robert said on April 12, 2010

Paintfully, you simply cannot format a partition that is bigger than 32 GB to FAT32 with Windows FORMAT command. It is an intentional feature invoked by Microsoft. The solution is to format disc to FAT32 under another operating system (fortunately, easy possible with USB drive). For example, ask any Linux user that you know – or, if you are more experienced, try to give a chance to some Linux Live distribution (Knoppix from knoppix.net or similar).
Anonymous said on April 20, 2010

Just one question that i don´t get. Are files in exFAT format compatible for Mac Users or do you either have to convert them to NFTS or buy the software capable of allowing files to be opened both on mac and pc´s. I have an external hard-drive, files (large quantities of music – about 120GB) on a mac which i need to get on the hard-drive and them open them on a media program like Itunes, VCL,… Does anyone know how i can solve this without buying software???? Thanks
James said on April 23, 2010

HPFS is the filing system included with OS/2
Compatibility said on May 16, 2010

Will exFat work on a Mac?
Cliff said on May 28, 2010

How does exFat compare to Apple formats? Can Apple OS read or write to it?
Jake_the_Peg said on May 31, 2010

Yes, OS X can read/write exFAT. BTW, OS X can also successfully read NTFS drives, but not write to them (see post above somewhere, which queries this). To enable OS X to write NTFS you need to get Paragon NTFS for Mac, which solves the problem beautifully. I consult for a large storage company and use my work W7 Dell (sadly) on the road, but them come home to write reports, etc, using 24″ iMac. The only problem I have xferring files is the incompatibility between Office 2008 (Mac, bug-ridden) and Office 2007 (W&, clumsy-as-hell), but that is another story altogether….
Jake_the_Peg said on May 31, 2010

I just realised that I ignored the first part of your question. Why bother comparing, i.e. if you are using a Mac and not transferring data like I am, the obvious answer is to stick with the native Apple file systems. However, increasingly we are using media servers at home (I have three of the little devils) and they seem to work best with FAT32 or exFAT. If you are formatting a disk for such a device on an Apple and transferring a lot of files to/from then the FAT32 format available in the Disk Utility is fine for pendrives, etc. An hdd I would format with exFAT on a Windows machine. My Mediagates, using NTFS, used to give me nothing but grief (of course usually halfway through a movie which is most annoying)…
Cliff said on May 31, 2010

Jake; what I’m trying to do is format a Maxtor 78gig HD via USB to HFS+ in install OS X Leopard. I’ve used all the disk utility and command line diskutil commands at the installation screen, but continue to get ‘formatter’ error (-9944), or ‘on exit’ error. I’ve tried the erase, multi-partitin, GUID and MBR. I know the HD is good, and I’ve set up partitions in FAT32, NTFS, and in exFAT before trying to change to HFS+ journaled extended. I will start the format but doesn’t progress and eventually gives the error mentioned. Also tried it with another Maxtor drive on USB and got the same results. The one thing I haven’t tried is changing the pinout to Master on the HD, probably because I doubt that would be a factor. Anyone knowhy I can’t get these USB drives HFS+ formatted??
Ralph Leonard said on June 11, 2010

Have UDF format only on Windows 7. Want the option to have NFTS on Win 7. How do I do it?
Tbyspk02 said on July 29, 2010

to answer your question you dont need to do all that, thats a lot of unnecessary formatting leave your big drive alone… ill explain how you can do the ps3 back up, im guessing you wanna back up to stick a bigger drive?

1 if you need to back up your ps3 stuff, forget it i tried doing it im running a 500gb now i will explain though is off topic
a) in the playstation site download their latest update the 4.1 i believe save it to a flash thumb drive with fat or fat32 format.
2 feel free to stick in your new ps3 drive and follow instructions in screen, stick in your flash drive before you start all this. that quite honestly should be it. its gone reformat your drive, and restart the whole ps3 my ps3 is running pretty good now.. good luck
MarlonL said on August 30, 2010

Try TestDisk & PhotoRec. Worked for me.
TestDisk id for recovering the partition or making the disk bootable again.
PhotoRec is for recovering files.
Gregdrans said on October 7, 2010

You can download ubuntu from their site for free. Burn it to a boot-able disk. Then u can run ubuntu from the burnt disk. Gparted will format it to fat32. I purchased dodgy 128 Kingston flash drive of eBay,I had problems with it. So i done the above. now no probs. Hope this helps :)
Amilfca said on October 20, 2010

I´ve a 128GB pendrive and I want to format it. Which should be the ideal FAT size (16, 32, 128 or … bytes?
Pinochio666 said on November 22, 2010

its the opposite dude, ps3 can’t read NTFS
JJ said on December 1, 2010

I use a Windows 7 PC, my wife has a mac book. We share an external hard drive for music and other media but the Mac can no longer see all of the data and has never been able to write to the drive (NTFS).
I’m going to format my next drive as either ext2 or exFAT. Any suggestions?
Anonymous said on December 1, 2010

As of the latest update (Mac OS X 10.6.5), OS X will read exFAT drives.
NC said on December 5, 2010

Put NTFS-3G and MacFUSE on your wife’s Mac, it will read and write NTFS perfectly. Before this I could never get a good solution for both OS’s
Naiky 2001 said on December 7, 2010

how to format exfat 80gb flash disk to ntfs file system
Turbo_purr said on December 11, 2010

Hi there, I am wanting to format my partitioned 1TB harddrive so it can play through USB on the tv. I know I need FAT32 to do this as NTFS doesn’t work, but would exFAT work??
Will exFAT play the same files AVI etc?
Or do I need to somehow format to FAT32 (I am using Vista). Please help
Anonymous said on December 13, 2010

Just because something supports FAT32 does not mean it will support exFAT. If you need to FAT32, just format that way. Vista will format in FAT32 if the drive is less than 32GB.

Otherwise, just search around for one of the many freeware programs that will format in FAT32. Google for “fat32format” is one possible options.
Walter Pinto said on December 18, 2010

Folks, I used fat32format.exe to format my Seagate Portable 1TB from NTFS to FAT32 and now my TV finds my folders and fles (movies, pics, songs…)… Thanks a lot for the tip. Walter from Brazil.
Rforrest said on December 27, 2010

look for fat32format in google
Formatted 1TB in a matter of minutes
EncriptiXX said on December 28, 2010

exFAT will work on Mac os X Snow Leopard 10.6.5, full support, not just read (Apple Macbook 4,3 w Snow Leopard 10.6.5)
Dawnmm18 said on December 31, 2010

I purchased a Micca Digital Player so I could plug my USB drive in and watch movies thru the player rather than constantly burning DVDs. The player works with my 4 gig flash drive that is fomatted FAT. The 256gig flash drive I have is formatted exFAT and the player doesnt seem to recognize it. Any suggestions. It was alot of money and I wondered if I could reformat it to FAT 32 or FAT.
Cellanime said on January 3, 2011

get ntfs-3g it’s a plugin that will allow your mac to read and write to ntfs formatted drives.
Viper_robert2006 said on January 26, 2011

i have a stick….16 Gb…but i can`t use all this space when the format of the stick is wit Fat 32….it works only with exFat…my mail is viper_robert2006..psl help me with some infos…P.S sorry but I don`t speak english….and…:P
Tunafisken said on February 5, 2011

OS X read NTFS, but can not write….
Tunafisken said on February 5, 2011

OS X can read NTFS, but can not write….
Zapbuzz said on February 10, 2011

so i went into xp setup accidently deleted my exfat partition.
how do i restore the deleted MFT?
That free tool TestDisk is rubbish as all it can find is NTFS.
Why don’t they make an emergency MFT recovery tool to go with these file systems and leave it to 3rd party gimmics?
Zapbuzz said on February 10, 2011

*instead of leaving it to 3rd party gimmics
Leslieonodje said on February 25, 2011

I HAVE AN LG EXTERNAL HHD500 GB WITH NTFS FORMAT.BUT ITS DOES NOT READ IN MY LG HOMETHEATRE.I MEAN TO PLAY MUSICS AND WATCH MOVIES.MY LG HOME THEATRE READS ONLY FAT32 FILES ONLY…HOW DO I MAKE IT TO READ MY HHD 500 GB?
Anonymous said on February 25, 2011

You dont have to type with all caps. You cannot make it work to read NTFS files, because the hardware only recognizes FAT32. This is the same issue with PS3 consoles and external harddrives.

You would need to move all of your stuff from the 500GB harddrive to a different harddrive temporarily, and then format the 500GB (which is now empty) to FAT32, and then move everything back.

Be advised, FAT32 can only hold individual files that are no more than 4GB in filesize.

Also, for further reading and perhaps a fix if you have an xbox 360 or ps3 console, check out “PS3 Media Server”. It lets you stream music/movies from your computer to the consoles. I use it all the time for all of my movies from my laptop to my hdtv. (Also its free)
Bigc312 said on March 4, 2011

why is it exfat will not play bak on the xbox lbut fat32 will
adrianGA said on March 18, 2011

Do i need to format my portable hard drive from NTFS to FAT32 to make it readable by my xbox360? I have windows xp and when i go to format it will only allow NTFS and exFAT, will exFAT work with my xbox? Mainly i’m looking for a definitive answer on how to get my portable hard drive to work on my xbox, it wont even read that there is a portable device on the xbox. I had an old seagate 300gb that worked on the xbox, but it died and now my new one won’t read. The xbox reads an 8gig flash drive but not my new 1tb drive.
adrianGA said on March 18, 2011

I just checked that the 8gig flash drive is FAT32, my windowsXP will only allow me to format the drive as exFAT or NTFS, NTFS won’t work on my xbox. So will exFAT be readable by my xbox? Also on the xbox when i go into memory it will read that the portable 1tb drive is there but wants to format it, should i use the xbox formatting if there is no FAT32 option on my comp. REMINDER when i go into video library on the xbox the portable drive doesn’t show up.
adrianGA said on March 18, 2011

I have figured it out. To make your portable hard drive work on your xbox. Make sure that the hard drive your want to make work on your xbox has been saved somewhere else or just use and empty hard drive, because the process WILL ERASE EVERYTHING on it. Plug the device into your xbox, if u go to any type of media library the device isn’t recognized as plugged in, this is because it is in NTFS format. You can view the format when in mycomputer and click on the device, I’m using winxp.. To make your xbox read the device it needs to be in a FAT32 format, there are draw backs and such to using this file format but that’s for another time. ANYWAYS all you have to do is plug it into your xbox, got to system settings, then go down to the memory, then the device will be there and go to customize for xbox data backup. You may not care to back up your xbox so u can pick a high or low level of space to use. When u click on customize it will tell u that the disk is not formatted or can’t be read by xbox and ask u to format it, do it. —> Format the drive, as long as it’s empty
Rakesh Dhatwalia said on April 29, 2011

Update your system with respactive patch

Update for Windows XP Service Pack 2 and for Windows XP Service Pack 3, x86-based version
Download the WindowsXP-KB955704-x86-ENU.exe package now. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=1cbe3906-ddd1-4ca2-b727-c2dff5e30f61

Update for Windows XP, x64-based version

Download the WindowsServer2003.WindowsXP-KB955704-x64-ENU.exe package now. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=6f69637b-41e6-4346-aa99-fcf802bd8bbd
JD said on May 1, 2011

Re-formatted an external HD using exFAT and loaded my data onto it. When I took the same external hd and used it on another computer the info on it is not accessible. It asks me to reformat the hd. help!
billa bob tnh said on May 29, 2011

U answered my f’in prayers! luv u long time :)
Sergiofilipe Teixeira said on June 2, 2011

these uptades are only to XP in english version.i try to install and it says that cannot install due to XP and uptade are in different language(im Portuguese). Also, im trying to format a Toshiba HDDR500 ib Fat32.i can access any operating system but ive seen in Vista and XP and neither of them give me that option.please advise.thx
Carsten said on June 5, 2011

oehhh…. maybe you deleted files, but did not empty trash?
Carsten said on June 5, 2011

I think, it is the same situation I experienced, then I put in onto my mac, still not working. Then I put it away, for a while, took it up again, and then it is working…. weird!
Carsten said on June 5, 2011

I need to use the best format that both mac – best if both tiger (not nessesary) and snow leopard can read it – and allso win 7.

If anybody can up with any suggestions, my future clients with joint issues will be very thankfull? (free help to anybody so helping the solution, thanks, I work on developing perception in the client on how the joint dynamically works!)
Chifylube said on July 10, 2011

Sony Sucks!
Damien A Dunne said on July 14, 2011

i have a pen drive 256gb exfat i cant keep files on pen drive usng xp sp3 but can on windows 7
Damien A Dunne said on July 14, 2011

i have a pen drive 256gb exfat i cant keep files on pen drive usng xp sp3 but can on windows 7
Damen A Dunne said on July 14, 2011

Sorry hit the enter button by mistake, question continued from above what do i have to do to get it working on xp sp 3
Bushido99 said on July 28, 2011

swissknife will format and drive you throw at it. i have a wd 1.5tb formated in exfat and it would great on any os or computer i put it on, including my ps3 , also but any size file i want on it, mp3, dvd, bluray all the above all work fine .
Sanka said on December 11, 2011

i have kinston 500gb flash drive, it’s exfat file system but i have copied files and connect to another win 7 computor there is folders empty but showing pen properties used space

what can i do????????????????

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