fat32 format

FAT32 is a type of partition format. This format uses a 32-bit file allocation table, which greatly enhances its disk management capabilities and breaks through the FAT16 limit of only 4 GB per partition.

As the current hard disk production costs decrease, its capacity is getting larger and larger. After using the FAT32 partition format, we can define a large hard disk into a partition It does not need to be divided into several partitions for use, which greatly facilitates disk management. (Recommended learning: PHP Video Tutorial)

However, because a single file larger than 4GB cannot be stored in the FAT32 partition, and the performance is poor, disk fragmentation is prone to occur. At present, hard disks have been replaced by the NTFS partition format with better performance, and U disks have been replaced by the exFAT partition format that supports single files larger than 4GB.

Performance Features

FAT32 (File Allocation Table) has one of the biggest advantages: in a partition not exceeding 8GB, the capacity of each cluster in the FAT32 partition format is Fixed at 4KB, compared with FAT16, it can greatly reduce disk waste and improve disk utilization.

Currently, the operating systems that support this disk partition format are Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10.

Some smartphones also support direct reading and writing (OTG) of FAT32 format memory. However, this partition format also has its shortcomings. The first is that disks partitioned in FAT32 format run slower than disks partitioned in FAT16 format due to the expansion of the file allocation table.

Constraints

Windows 2000 and Windows XP can read and write FAT32 file systems of any size, but the formatters on these platforms can only create FAT32 files up to 32GB system.

The fat32 partition can be directly accessed under dos system, but the ntfs partition cannot be directly accessed under dos system.

Disadvantages

But FAT has a serious shortcoming: when new data is written after the file is deleted, FAT will not organize the file into complete fragments and then write it. After use, the file data will become gradually dispersed, which will slow down the reading and writing speed. Hard drive defragmentation is one solution, but it must be done frequently to maintain the efficiency of the FAT file system. There is also the fact that the FAT32 partition cannot support a single file exceeding 4GB due to design flaws.

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