[Learning More] The Thinking behind 32GB Windows Format

With the developing needs of storage disk with large capacity, it seems like FAT32, a file system developed for personal computers designed in 1977, is gradually faded away from our sights. Why are we still thinking of 32GB format under the prevalence of NTFS? What deep thoughts and inspirations can FAT32 bring to us? For many of these questions, Dave Plummer, a Microsoft engineer, gives us some new ideas.

The thinking behind 32GB Windows format from the professional engineer

Plummer considered what cluster size to utilize while keeping Windows' future users in mind. Because the FAT32 file system already had the maximum number of clusters, his alternatives were to determine the proper volume size.

The restriction has always seemed somewhat arbitrary, especially given the file system's theoretical maximum volume size of 16TB. Using an alternative formatting tool or using the command line allows you to easily override the defaults, but keeping with the original user interface meant staying with Plummer's Format dialog. As a result, FAT32 was limited to 32GB.

Plummer was active in migrating the Windows 95 shell to Windows NT in the late twentieth century. In addition to the gritty lower-level elements flowing down to the API, he also threw together the famous, layered Format dialog over an hour of user-interface inventiveness.

About FAT32

▶ What is FAT32?

FAT is a file system designed for personal computers that served as the primary filesystem for MS-DOS and Windows 9x. It was developed in 1977 for use on floppy disks, and it has since been modified for usage on hard drives and other devices such as cameras, cellphones, and so on.

In addition, if you know more about PCs, FAT is utilized internally for the EFI system partition in the boot stage of EFI-compliant machines on contemporary systems and PCs. In the UEFI boot partition, hidden FAT file system are also utilized.

▶ How does FAT32 influence the Windows format?

In fact, FAT family has FAT12, FAT16 and FAT32. But the first two types have a volume size limit. So, to get rid of FAT16's volume size constraint, Microsoft created FAT32, a new version of the file system that permitted an expanded number of potential clusters while reusing much of the previous code, resulting in a typical memory footprint increase of less than 5 KB under DOS. Cluster values are represented by 32-bit integers, with the cluster number occupying 28 bits. In addition, the new design has new points.

1. Maximal size
The FAT32 boot sector employs a 32-bit field for sector count, restricting the maximum FAT32 volume size to 2 terabytes with 512-byte sectors. The maximum FAT32 volume size is 16 TB with a sector size of 4,096 bytes, which implies that if you have a file larger than 4GB, you won't be able to store it and receive the errors such as "The Parameter Is Incorrect" or "The File Is Too Large for Destination File System" will be shown. Furthermore, the maximum partition size is 2TB, you can’t use the FAT32 file system on a disk larger than 2TB.

2. No journaling
Due to the fact that FAT32 does not enable file journaling, the system is more prone to file corruption. A situation like this is uncommon with a contemporary file system like NTFS since it includes a journaling mechanism that tracks changes to the drive before you make them. As a result, if there is a power outage when writing on the disk, the process will be recovered quickly.

3. No support for file permissions
The purpose of file permission is to improve the security of your data. FAT32 no longer allows you to establish file rights, therefore you can't prohibit various users from modifying the same application. You will also not limit user access to certain files on your system. This is in contrast to the NTFS file system, which is extremely safe.

Formatting large drives to FAT32

Because of the limitation of the hardware and other conditions, FAT32 is not suitable for modern devices.

Plummer claims that while evaluating the highest file limit to apply on FAT32, he utilized the biggest memory card at his disposal, which was 16MB, and that he used this capacity when testing the FAT32 file system that he built as an engineer at Microsoft. He scaled the 16MB capacity by 1,000 and then doubled it to get the maximum file size that would always work for any device running NT 4.0. Then he set the limit to 32GB.

This engineer also says that he made his decision based on the assumption that 16TB is the current maximum volume capacity for a file system. If other developers modify this number, it has the potential to significantly overrule the defaults, even FAT32. To prevent incompatibilities with the existing file system, developers were forced to comply with Plummer's choice to limit the 32GB format to FAT32.

However, it is not impossible to exceed the FAT32 file size restriction. Microsoft developed NTFS in 1993 as a replacement for the FAT file system. Because it employs advanced data structures to boost dependability, disk space utilization, and overall performance, this new file system is more durable and effective than the FAT file system. The benefits of NTFS are obvious because it can accept volumes with capacities of up to 256TB and file sizes of up to 16 EiB. Larger NTFS volumes necessitate the use of a 64-bit operating system and sufficient hardware.

So, you can convert the FAT32 to NTFS file system to break the limitation of FAT32. Command Prompt can help you do it.

Step 1. Press the Windows key + R to open the run dialog box.

Step 2. Type “cmd” to open the command prompt.

Step 3. Next, type “help convert” and press the Enter key.

Step 4. Type: convert (drive letter): /fs:ntfs, and press Enter.

CMD is very convenient when you wish to convert FAT32 to NTFS, however, it doesn’t support converting NTFS back to FAT32. If you want to use FAT32, you’ll have to format your drive and give up all data.

In this case, you can use AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard, a free disk and partition manager for Windows 11/10/8/8.1/7/XP system. The “NTFS to FAT32 Converter” function can easily and safely convert your drive between FAT32 and NTFS. And its “Format Partition” function supports FAT32, NTFS, exFAT, Ext2, Ex3, Ext4, you can even format 2TB drive to FAT32 if you need.

Step 1. Install and run AOMEI Partition Assistant. Click “Convert” in the top toolbar, and choose “Convert to NTFS/FAT32”.

Step 2. In the pop-up windows, choose “NTFS to FAT32” and then click “Next”.

Step 3. Select the partition which you want to convert and click “Next”.

Step 4. Tick “check and repair partition before converting it” to check whether there are bad sectors on the partition. Click “Proceed” when everything is ready.