Differences between version 3 and predecessor to the previous major change of FAT32.
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| Newer page: | version 3 | Last edited on Tuesday, December 27, 2005 2:24:26 pm | by CraigBox | Revert |
| Older page: | version 2 | Last edited on Sunday, September 28, 2003 8:17:14 am | by AristotlePagaltzis | Revert |
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[FAT32] is the successor to [FAT16] in the line of FileAllocationTable [FileSystem]s, designed for use with current [HardDisk]s. It was a bigger evolutionary step from its predecessor than the one from [FAT12] to [FAT16], not only in terms of added FileAllocationTable entry bit width, but also in terms of internal structure which had not changed between [FAT12] and [FAT16].
[FAT32] uses a fixed DiskCluster size of 4Kb. Since it can address 2^32 clusters, this is sufficient for 16TB of storage.
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+Windows does not let you format a disc of 32GB or greater with FAT32, as an attempt to push everyone to using NTFS. It can, however address large discs fine. There is, however, [fat32format, an OSS utility for formatting large FAT32 partitions|http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/index.htm?fat32format.htm]. Linux can format FAT32 partitions of any size, with no problem.
