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too much for FAT32; not even close on NTFS

Anonymous
2023-08-08T18:00:32+00:00

I have a collection of files that I needed to copy onto a USB flash drive. The total size is almost 14 GB, so I thought that a 32 GB would be perfect. Given that this is a new drive, it was formatted in FAT32. There are two ISOs in the collection, as I want to have a current copy of Windows, both 10 & 11, preserved. However, when I started the copy, it failed with a message that there was not sufficient space on the drive. I formatted it to NTFS and the copy was successful.

Does FAT32 have a problem with ISOs the size of a Windows 10/11 release? Or is something else going on?

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Files, folders, and storage

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  1. Rodrigo Queiroz 77,500 Reputation points Independent Advisor
    2023-08-08T18:33:12+00:00

    Hi nobody-important,

    I'm Rodrigo and I'll help you.

    FAT32 file system has a file size limit of 4GB, this is probably what was causing the issue of copying the files to the USB drive. NTFS does not have this limitation.

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  1. MR_MEOW 3,536 Reputation points
    2023-08-08T18:23:27+00:00

    No. fat32 has a 4gb max size limit with a max partition size of 32gb. I think most dvds are šŸ“€ is 4.7gb.

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  1. Anonymous
    2023-08-09T21:37:34+00:00

    Thanks to CatteryDeveloper and Rodrigo.Queiroz.

    Of course. That explains it. I think I'll format all my USB flash drives in NTFS.

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