The main advantages of exFAT in comparison to FAT32 are the removal of the 4 GB file size limit and support for hard drives with large capacities (recommended maximum sizes for both are 512 TB). The exFAT file system driver will add the option to format removable media with the exFAT file system to take advantage of it. The file system is using a smaller disk space overhead than the NTFS file system. Users reported a disk space overhead of only 96 Kilobytes on a 4 Gigabyte flash drive after formattting it with the exFAT file system. The NTFS file system used more than 47 Megabytes of space for overhead.

Interested users can download the exFAT file system driver update directly from Microsoft to add exFAT file system support to their operating system.

The exFAT file system driver incorporates the following advanced structures to improve performance:

* A cluster bitmap for fast allocation
* A per-file contiguous bit for fast file access
* Better contiguous on-disk layout (useful for recording movies)
* Support for Universal Coordinated Time (UTC) time stamps

The exFAT file system driver is designed for extensibility to enable the file system to keep pace with innovations in storage and changes in usage and to enable OEMs and ISVs to add extensions seamlessly. Specifically, exFAT adds the following features:

* Adds template-based metadata structures to enable custom extensions
* Enables implementations to persist these extensions without having to know their format

The exFAT file system driver adds increased compatibility with flash media. This includes the following capabilities:

* Alignment of file system metadata on optimal write boundaries of the device
* Alignment of the cluster heap on optimal write boundaries of the device

The prerequisites for the update are an installation of Windows XP Service Pack 2 or Service Pack 3.

Related posts

• Steps to take before you install Windows XP Service Pack 3 (5)
• Still running Fat32 ? Time to convert to NTFS (3)
• Project Dakota Full Windows XP Update CD (7)
• Hide Information in Files (0)
• Format an USB Device as NTFS in Windows XP (6)

I had first thought of using the virtual OS of Windows XP on my PC to format these drives via a USB to ATA connector. And this will work. But as I am not going to be doing this on an on-going basis, I figured I’ll look for something that may be used by people without virtual OS software. And I found one at Fat32 Format.

This fat32format.exe program is small enough for me to store it on a web email account to access anytime I want. And it’s fast and simple to use. Just open a DOS CMD window and type "fat32format x:" where x is the drive to be formatted. Just be careful and never ever type c:

The only downside is this does not perform disk integrity checks. You’ll have to do a chkdsk yourself afterwards. Although this does mean it’s lightning fast in formating. And it’ll format up to 2 Terrabytes in FAT32.

This article has been contributed by Dante. Thanks a lot !

Related posts

• Visualize Hard Drive Space (3)
• Ultimate Defrag (16)
• Hard Drive Health Monitoring (3)
• Free Paragon Hard Disk Manager 8 (6)
• Find out which devices have been connected to your pc (5)