Rocstor Arcticroc 2T User Manual download pdf (Page 57)

ARCTICROC 2T – 2Bay RAID System - User Manual Page | 57

INTRODUCTION TO FORMATTING

File Allocation Table (FAT)

FAT is a file system developed by Microsoft for MS-DOS and is the primary file system for

consumer versions of Microsoft Windows.

The FAT file system is relatively uncomplicated and is supported by virtually all existing

operating systems for personal computers. This makes it an ideal format for hard drives and

other storage devices and a convenient way of sharing data between disparate operating

systems installed on the same computer (a dual boot environment).

FAT 32 is a disk formatting scheme which allows a maximum file size of 4 GB. Larger files

require another formatting type such as HFS+ or NTFS.

Microsoft’s Scan-Disk utility, included with Windows 95/98, places a volume limit of 127.53

gigabytes.

FAT 32 was introduced with Windows 95 OSR2. Windows 98 introduced a utility to convert

existing hard disks from FAT16 to FAT32 without loss of data. In the NT line, native support for

FAT32 arrived in Windows 2000.

Windows 2000 and Windows XP can read and write to FAT32 file systems of any size, but the

format program included in Windows 2000 and higher can only create FAT32 file systems of 32

GB or less. This limitation is by design and was imposed because many tasks on very large

FAT32 files become slow and inefficient when file systems exceed 32GB. This limitation can be

bypassed when using the Windows command line Format utility or by using third-party

formatting utilities.

The maximum possible size for a file on a FAT32 volume is 4 GB minus 1 byte. Video capture

and editing applications and some other software can easily exceed this limit.

Until mid-2006, those who run dual boot systems or who move external data drives between

computers with different operating systems had little choice but to stick with FAT32. Since

then, full support for NTFS has become available in Linux and many other operating systems by

installing the FUSE library (on Linux) together with the NTFS-3G application. Data exchange is

also possible between Windows and Linux by using the Linux-native ext2 or ext3 file systems

through the use of external drivers for Windows, such as ext2 IFS. However, Windows cannot

boot from ext2 or ext3 partitions.

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Rocstor Arcticroc 2T User Manual Page 57