The Myths of 4GB Limitation

One EBayer called me idiot
"Your an idiot... I've personally purchased these
items and found them to be more than applicable...
Not only that, I'm assuming that you have Windows
Vista.. Because any type of flash storage device
plugged into a Vista Machine will only show a MAX
of 4GB. It's a bug that Microsoft is working hard
to fix..."


In fact, I am not using Window Vista. I am still an old timer who uses Window XP. However, it has nothing to do with Microsoft Window.  


Another EBayer argued with me:
"I have in my hand a 64 GB leather thumbdrive that I got for $33. Yuu can check my EBay history if you want to. Not only did it come from Hong Kong, it got to me in 10 days, from a great seller. I have been using it for several days now. I actually have 2 of them and I found that they do need to be formatted to use them at there full capacity. Also they don't even show up in Windows XP if you don't format then in the NTSF format. They both work fine with Windows 7."


I give the EBayer instruction to test it. The result is ...
"I am so sorry that I argued with you. These "64GB" thumbdrives do max out at about 4.5GB. I guess that I got a good screwing too."


The test program is verifying its actual physical size instead of checking its property.


I received more emails from EBayers told me that it was a limitation of FAT32, you must format it in NTFS to go beyond 4GB.


In fact, FAT32 supports up to 32GB of volume size and 4GB on max file size. Volume and file size are two different things. Many people misunderstood that FAT32 only able supports up to 4GB.


What is the difference between volume size and file size?
Volume size is like a big container, file size is like big ball. One big container can have many big balls. One big container can only have size less than 32GB and each big ball can only have the size less than 4GB.


If you have flash drive more than 32GB, then you have to format it with NTFS. It supports upto 2TB volume size and nearly unlimited file size. For example, you want to copy a single high-definition movie to your flash drive, then you must format your flash drive with NTFS, otherwise, a movie file size more than 4GB will not able to store in FAT32 formatted flash drive.

Reference: http://www.ntfs.com/ntfs_vs_fat.htm