USB flash drives, memory sticks, etc. normally come preformatted as FAT (FAT16). This has four main advantages and one big disadvantage.

FOR:

• FAT16 is quicker than FAT32 or NTFS for writing files to the drive.
• The number of read/writes is less than NTFS for any given set of files actions.*
• Data loss is less likely when unplugged without using “Safe Removal” **

* This has two effects
Flash memory has a finite number of read write cycles before they fail. NTFS will therefore wear out the drive more quickly. In reality for a good quality drive this will not be significant for the average user.

NTFS is slower, particularly when writing a large number of small files, because of the increased number of cycles.

** If the drive is formatted as NTFS the windows safe removal utility (Safely Remove Hardware accessed from the System Tray - see screenshot below) must be used to make sure any cached data is written to the drive before unplugging. (This also applies to other USB drives not just flash drives and it is more likely that a larger hard drive based device will be NTFS formatted)

AGAINST:

• FAT16 and FAT32 have a maximum file size limit of 2GB and 4GB(-2 Bytes) respectively

So what Can you Do?

1. If you don’t need to write any files larger than 2GB stick with FAT16
2. If you need to write files up to 4GB consider using FAT32
3. If you need to write files larger than 2GB or 4GB consider using an archiving (zip/rar) utility that will split large files into smaller pieces and recombine them on “unzipping”
4. If you must write and read a large file from the flash drive then format with NTFS - BUT remember to safely unplug the device before removal
5. If you are using your flash drive to transfer a large number of small files zip/rar the files first writing the zip file to your PC hard drive and then move/copy it to the flash drive. This WILL save you a lot of time although it requires a little more effort(I often copy my portable Firefox setup to transfer it to a non-home PC using this method)

Useful Links

Irongeek.com Choosing between FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS to get a faster USB Flash Drive

NTFS.com How do I format a USB Flash Drive to NTFS file system?

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This entry was posted on Thursday, March 27th, 2008 at 8:09 pm and is filed under Hints & Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.