this is new to me, though a brief google search tells me this is a new filesystem provided by vista for flash and external drives

anywho, i just got my 16gb corsair flash drive in the mail (for $20 AR...after selling my 8gb for $25 on craigslist ) and when i went to format it, windows defaulted to exFAT...should i use this or NTFS?

FAT32 is unacceptable since i will likely be moving files over 4gb in size...and, to my understanding, NTFS requires more overhead and (in theory) actually reduces the life of the flash memory (i realize this is a relatively minor hit to lifespan, but if exFAT does everything NTFS does without the overhead, it makes little difference to me)

your opinions? does it matter at all? i have little cause to use this on *nix

10/26/2008 6:24:56 PM

I wouldn't format a flash drive to NTFS, there's no real point.

10/26/2008 7:29:59 PM

^ i thought single file size was limited to 4gb using FAT32? NTFS has no limit...so that would be a good reason, yes?

10/26/2008 7:33:29 PM

^ NTFS has a max file size limit, it's just greater than the size of any drive in production. Are all the operating systems your using compatible with this file system? If not, you'll run into compatibility issues. Most external drives come formatted as FAT32 because all the major OSes read it out of the box.

10/26/2008 7:54:21 PM

that's why i'm asking...i think that exFAT is a proprietary MS filesystem, so that would mean that it wouldn't be easily read by *nix...as for XP, i understand that the driver provided by vista works in XP, but whether or not XP will install it upon insertion, i don't know

i'm sure i could google everything (and probably will)...i just didn't know if anyone had used it, since it's relatively new

10/26/2008 7:57:13 PM

Quote :

" exFAT Main article: exFAT exFAT is an incompatible replacement for FAT file systems that was introduced with Windows Embedded CE 6.0. It is intended to be used on flash drives, where FAT is used today. Windows XP file system drivers will be offered by Microsoft shortly after the release of Windows CE 6.0[citation needed], while Windows Vista Service Pack 1 added exFAT support to Windows Vista.[23] exFAT introduces a free space bitmap allowing faster space allocation and faster deletes, support for files up to 2^64 bytes, larger cluster sizes (up to 32 MB in the first implementation), an extensible directory structure and name hashes for filenames for faster comparisons. It does not have short 8.3 filenames anymore. It does not appear to have security access control lists or file system journaling like NTFS, though device manufacturers can choose to implement simplified support for transactions (backup file allocation table used for the write operations, primary FAT for storing last known good allocation table)."

10/26/2008 8:02:17 PM

^ i know, i read that...the lack of journaling and access lists, as well as the addition of the free space bitmap, makes it faster than NTFS and the support for files larger than 4gb makes it more useful than FAT32

i just didn't know if anyone had experience with it

10/26/2008 8:07:50 PM

if anyone cares, this works:

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4147188/exFAT_Driver_for_Windows_XP_2003

i think it holds promise...but since it's still proprietary, i don't know that it'll catch on since it can't be used on *nix systems

10/27/2008 10:35:37 AM

http://www.merawindows.com/Forums/tabid/324/forumid/15/threadid/35485/scope/posts/Default.aspx

If you prefer to know what it's doing to your system. Also, be sure to VIRUS CHECK any driver you download like this.

If you want to be super safe, manually download the Vista SP1, and pull exfat.dll out, then update your registry yourself. Also keep in mind this FS in intended pretty much only for Windows CE, the Vista support is really only there for development purposes. This isn't (yet) a consumer replacement for portable devices.

[Edited on October 27, 2008 at 1:28 PM. Reason : .]

10/27/2008 1:27:10 PM