Vfat file size

The maximum size of a partition was 32 MB. This version of FAT12 introduced hierarchical directories. The use of directories allowed FAT12 to store many more files on the hard disk, as the maximum number of files was no longer constrained by the root directory size. This number could now be equal to the number of clusters or even greater, using zero-sized files.

The format of the FAT itself did not change. In this file system, the disk address was now 16 bits and the maximum partition size jumped to 2 GB. Filenames on the system were limited to eight characters with a three-character suffix.

A variant of the FAT16 file system allowed longer filenames to be used. The FAT32 file system was introduced in and is still in use today. The FAT32 file system uses 32 bits for disk addressing and for clusters. Only 28 of the 32 bits are used to address clusters, but even this allows for clusters, which allows FAT32 to support media sizes up to 2 TB.

Unfortunately, limitations in other Microsoft utilities mean that the file-allocation table is not allowed to grow beyond clusters, which supports media sizes up to GB. Because of the bit disk address, files can grow to a maximum size of 4 GB. Also the long filenames from VFAT were implemented. Each of the FAT file-system variants shares common characteristics. They are implemented using a file-allocation table with file pieces put together using a linked list of clusters.

There is one file-allocation table per disk volume. The FAT has a common structure. Converting a partition to FAT32 reduces the cluster size and overcomes the 2-GB partition size limit. For partitions 8 GB and smaller, the cluster size is reduced to a mere 4K. As you can imagine, it's not uncommon to gain back hundreds of megabytes by converting a partition to FAT32, especially if the partition contains a lot of small files.

Updated info quote below. As I mentioned, FAT32 does have limitations. Unfortunately, it isn't compatible with any operating system other than Windows 98 and the OSR2 version of Windows However, Windows will be able to read FAT32 partitions. The other disadvantage is that your disk utilities and antivirus software must be FATaware. Otherwise, they could interpret the new file structure as an error and try to correct it, thus destroying data in the process.

Finally, I should mention that converting to FAT32 is a one-way process. Therefore, before converting to FAT32, you need to consider whether the computer will ever be used in a dual-boot environment.

I should also point out that although other operating systems such as Windows NT can't directly read a FAT32 partition, they can read it across the network.

Therefore, it's no problem to share information stored on a FAT32 partition with other computers on a network that run older operating systems. Updated mentioned in comment by Doktor-J assimilated to update out of date answer in case comment is ever lost :. The original article was written in , and being posted on a Microsoft website, probably wasn't concerned with non-Microsoft operating systems anyways.

The operating systems "excluded" by that paragraph are probably the original Windows 95, Windows NT 4. The choosing of the driver determines how some of the features are applied to the file system. For example, systems mounted with msdos driver don't have long filenames they use the 8.

Source: this Wikipedia article. Output of commands like df and lsblk indeed shows vfat as the file system type. You can confirm vfat is a module and not a file system type by running modinfo vfat. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams?

Collectives on Stack Overflow. Learn more. Ask Question. Asked 9 years, 5 months ago. Active 10 months ago. Subscribe to the daily or weekly newsletter and get featured terms and quizzes delivered to your inbox. You can unsubscribe or change your frequency setting at any time using the links available in each email. Please contact us. We just sent you an email to confirm your email address.

Once you confirm your address, you will begin to receive the newsletter. Definitions by TechTerms.