How to format a USB flash drive to NTFS file system for mass storage

U disk is one of the commonly used storage devices in our daily life. It is small in size, large in capacity and easy to carry, and is deeply loved by the majority of users. However, since U disks are usually formatted with the FAT32 file system when leaving the factory, the storage capacity of a single file cannot exceed 4GB, which brings a lot of inconvenience to users. This article will introduce in detail how to format a USB flash drive into the NTFS file system to achieve large-capacity storage and meet the actual needs of users.

Tool materials:

System version: Windows 11 Professional Edition

Brand model: Kingston DataTraveler Max 256GB U disk

Software version: The disk management tool that comes with Windows 11

1. Understand the advantages of the NTFS file system

NTFS (New Technology File System) is an operating system of Microsoft Windows NT and later versions. The file system used. Compared with FAT32, NTFS has the following advantages:

1. Supports large-capacity storage: NTFS theoretically supports a single partition size of up to 16EB (1EB=1,048,576GB), and a single file size can reach 16TB, far exceeding FAT32 4GB limit.

2. Improve security: NTFS supports access permission control of files and folders. You can set read, write, execute and other permissions to improve data security.

3. Improved performance: NTFS uses a variety of optimization technologies, such as metadata caching, log file systems, etc., to improve file reading and writing performance.

2. Use Windows built-in tools to format the U disk

1. Insert the U disk into the USB interface of the computer and ensure that the computer can recognize the U disk.

2. Right-click "This Computer" and select "Manage" to enter the computer management interface.

3. Click "Storage-Disk Management" in the left navigation bar and find the disk partition representing the U disk.

4. Right-click the U disk partition and select "Format".

5. In the format dialog box, select "NTFS" as the file system, keep the allocation unit size as default, and the volume label can be customized.

6. Check "Perform Quick Format" and click "OK" to start the formatting process.

7. Wait for the formatting to be completed, and the USB flash drive will be successfully converted to the NTFS file system.

3. Notes

1. Formatting will clear all data in the USB flash drive. Please back up important files in advance.

2. Some old devices (such as early TVs, stereos, etc.) may not support the NTFS file system. Please confirm compatibility before use.

3. Try to format the USB flash drive under Windows system. Linux and macOS may not support NTFS format by default.

Content extension:

1. If the USB disk has a large capacity (such as 256GB and above), it is recommended to set the allocation unit size to 64KB when formatting to improve storage efficiency.

2. For some brands of USB flash drives, the official may provide special formatting tools, such as SanDisk's SanDisk Secure Access software, which can optimize the performance of the USB flash drive.

3. If you need to share data between different operating systems, you can consider using the exFAT file system. It has better compatibility, but its security and performance are slightly lower than NTFS.

Summary:

Formatting the U disk into the NTFS file system can break through the 4GB single file size limit of FAT32 and make full use of the storage potential of the large-capacity U disk. By using the built-in disk management tool of Windows, users can quickly complete the USB disk formatting operation to meet daily data storage needs. At the same time, we also need to pay attention to the risks of formatting and the compatibility issues of different devices, and choose the most appropriate file system format according to the actual situation.

The above is the detailed content of How to format a USB flash drive to NTFS file system for mass storage. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!