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ForumsDiscussion Forum → Why won't my 16 gig flash drive take an 11 gig file?
Why won't my 16 gig flash drive take an 11 gig file?
2010-08-07, 11:35 AM #1
Can anyone answer this? I'm trying to move an 11 gig video file from my laptop to my wife's without tying up the network with that kind of transfer.
obviously you've never been able to harness the power of cleavage...

maeve
2010-08-07, 11:38 AM #2
It's probably formatted as FAT32, which has a max filesize of 4 GB. Format it as NTFS or exFAT
2010-08-07, 12:57 PM #3
Assuming you're both on ethernet it'd only take ~20 minutes to transfer over the network anyway :P

And if on wifi, it'd take about an hour.
2010-08-07, 1:07 PM #4
I'd assume it's for the reason Darth has stated.
>>untie shoes
2010-08-07, 1:49 PM #5
I've had some usb's that for some reason would only be allowed to be formatted in FAT32. So my workaround was to use 7zip to split it into smaller files
You can't judge a book by it's file size
2010-08-07, 1:56 PM #6
There's an additional way to get around it.

You have to go into device manager and right click on the drive. Click properties. Go to the policies tab. Click optimize for performance. Then you can format as NTFS. From there on out, though, you should always manually eject it before unplugging it, otherwise you run the risk of damaging the file system.
>>untie shoes
2010-08-07, 2:42 PM #7
Why doesn't windows post XP automatically format it as NTFS anyway? I didn't even know Win7 could format anything as fat32. Unless that's factory default (which is dumb)
2010-08-07, 2:53 PM #8
Most flash drives are like that by default because you don't have to manually eject things with fat32 formatting. It makes it easier for people who don't understand the concept of why you need to manually disconnect storage devices.
>>untie shoes
2010-08-07, 3:00 PM #9
Oh, in that case I'll leave it as fat32, can't be bothered manually disconnecting =p
You can't judge a book by it's file size
2010-08-07, 3:02 PM #10
Huh, I never knew.
2010-08-07, 3:27 PM #11
Originally posted by Antony:
Most flash drives are like that by default because you don't have to manually eject things with fat32 formatting. It makes it easier for people who don't understand the concept of why you need to manually disconnect storage devices.

You have that backwards. NTFS is a journaled file system. If something goes wrong during a file operation (like the drive being disconnected) it'll be able to recover. Fat32 will **** the bed.
Bassoon, n. A brazen instrument into which a fool blows out his brains.
2010-08-07, 3:28 PM #12
I've always ignored that "remove safely" bull****, and it hasn't bitten me in the ass yet.
2010-08-07, 3:38 PM #13
Is this thread sorta maybe a euphemism? For something?
2010-08-07, 5:24 PM #14
Always use an AV.
2010-08-07, 5:39 PM #15
Originally posted by Tibby:
Huh, I never knew.


Irritatingly, my car's MS Sync system won't read NTFS (why can't a Microsoft piece of software read a Microsoft proprietary filesystem? Who knows?!), so I had to format to FAT32. FAT32 is also friendly across platforms - Linux and Mac can read it without any problems.
the idiot is the person who follows the idiot and your not following me your insulting me your following the path of a idiot so that makes you the idiot - LC Tusken
2010-08-07, 5:46 PM #16
Originally posted by Connection Problem:
I've always ignored that "remove safely" bull****, and it hasn't bitten me in the ass yet.


Same, I've got a couple of hard drive docking bays, the main one I use has 2 hard drive slots in it, and they're designed for hotswapping, I swap hard drives around all the time
You can't judge a book by it's file size
2010-08-07, 9:59 PM #17
Speaking as someone who knows how hard drives and file systems work...

Originally posted by Connection Problem:
I've always ignored that "remove safely" bull****, and it hasn't bitten me in the ass yet.
I always play golf during thunderstorms, and it hasn't bitten me in the ass yet. :)

"Remove safely" isn't bull****.

Small storage devices, like memory cards or USB sticks, don't have a built-in write cache so you probably won't lose data by doing this. But...

Originally posted by Deadman:
Same, I've got a couple of hard drive docking bays, the main one I use has 2 hard drive slots in it, and they're designed for hotswapping, I swap hard drives around all the time
Hot-swapping a mounted hard drive is a really really bad idea. Hard drives have a built-in write cache, which can be anywhere from 4 to 32 MB. Many drives also ignore the commands Windows needs to protect your data. Having a hot-swap bay doesn't mean it's safe to hot-swap without unmounting the drive first!
2010-08-08, 6:33 AM #18
Also, I believe XP treated even USB drives with software write caching by default (meaning it will store the writes in RAM and complete the operation earlier than it actually takes to finish). I think this option was changed in Vista/7.

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