What is exFAT?

The exFAT file system is a rel­a­tive­ly new format that was developed with flash storage media like USB sticks and SD cards in mind. But the format is also used on SSD drives. Rather than a com­plete­ly new tech­nol­o­gy, the system is simply a spe­cial­ized version of FAT32 that has been optimized for use on modern and new flash media like USB sticks and SSDs.

exFAT is the ab­bre­vi­a­tion of the “Extended File Al­lo­ca­tion Table.” The maximum cluster size of exFAT is 32 mebibytes. The maximum number of files that can be stored in a folder is 2,796,202. Private users will likely never approach this limit in the millions, while users of pro­fes­sion­al ap­pli­ca­tions in research, industry, and media now finally have suf­fi­cient “headroom” for the number of files they can store. With FAT32 – the pre­de­ces­sor of exFAT – the upper limit was re­strict­ed to 65,534 files. The further de­vel­op­ment is, therefore, helpful for certain data-intensive ap­pli­ca­tions and was long overdue.

As of version number 10.6.5, the exFAT standard has been fully supported by Apple. This increases the com­pat­i­bil­i­ty between Mac and PC devices and sim­pli­fies data trans­mis­sions. Support for Linux operating systems has been less than optimal for a long time. However, this problem was fixed in the meantime thanks to driver solutions from companies like Samsung. With the Linux dis­tri­b­u­tion Ubuntu, exFAT has been included in the official packet sources as of version 12.04.

From a less technical per­spec­tive, exFAT can be seen as a hybrid between NTFS and FAT32. It is a modern file system like NTFS, but just as com­pat­i­ble as the classic FAT32.

exFAT is now used by many man­u­fac­tur­ers and hence also by many users, both on USB sticks and on SSD drives. Although there are no technical lim­i­ta­tions regarding the file size – as outlined above – exFAT has quickly been shown to work most ef­fi­cient­ly when the total size of the data storage is not too big.

Here are some rec­om­men­da­tions for optimally using the exFAT format: Large hard drives that are only used on Windows computers should always be NTFS-formatted. This also applies to data that has to be accessed quickly – such as for an ap­pli­ca­tion in real-time. When file com­pres­sion is necessary, NTFS has to be used, since exFAT does not support com­pres­sion. In all other ap­pli­ca­tion cases, exFAT should be preferred – and for small quan­ti­ties of data, FAT32 as well.

When it comes to fast data exchanges between Apple and PC devices, as is becoming in­creas­ing­ly more important nowadays, exFAT is able to play to its full strengths. The data exchange no longer takes place from computer to computer, but via the cloud – and without the need for a mobile storage device with an exFAT file system.

Col­lab­o­ra­tion between PC and Mac devices is a notorious problem, since Mac systems are not able to handle the NTFS standard. The dis­ad­van­tage of FAT32 is that you can not save any data larger than around 4 gigabytes. The solution is exFAT; it can store large files (e.g. movies) on a single storage medium. Multiple devices with a wide range of operating systems can then work with this storage medium. Users and experts often say that exFAT is highly flexible.

Thus, the exFAT file system is used wherever NTFS does not offer a practical solution, for example, because of the data structure. All FAT formats – es­pe­cial­ly exFAT – are suitable for embedded systems, because the file system has a lean structure. Due to the low storage and power re­quire­ments, exFAT is also fre­quent­ly used in firmware. Directly compared to its pre­de­ces­sor FAT32, exFAT is tech­ni­cal­ly better as it offers higher maximum file and partition sizes.

exFAT is useful when working with different operating systems, since the format works with Mac, Windows, and Linux and all storage media are supported – from hard drives to USB sticks and SD cards. exFAT solves the problems outlined earlier in storing huge files across different platforms. For this reason, it is often referred to as a “better FAT.” After all, it simply has many ad­van­tages over the older FAT32 standard.

Mul­ti­me­dia hardware – like cameras, car radios, media players, or TV sets – does not typically work properly with the NTFS file system. Con­se­quent­ly, audio or video files are not displayed or played back. Sometimes, the folder is not rec­og­nized. Instead, the hardware would appear as an empty USB stick, empty SD card, or empty hard drive, even though all the data were suc­cess­ful­ly copied and pre­vi­ous­ly shown and played back correctly on the computer. The exFAT standard is generally more com­pat­i­ble than NTFS and enables playback and display on almost all common mul­ti­me­dia devices – no matter whether they are new or old.

When exFAT is to be used on a computer with an old Windows XP operating system, an update will need to be installed. Otherwise, the format will not be supported. Windows Vista may only work with exFAT after in­stalling Service Pack 1 or Service Pack 2.

With intensive ap­pli­ca­tions, exFAT often en­coun­ters problems, re­gard­less of the operating system or platform. The hard drive or storage media may not always be detected at first and it can sometimes take several attempts to transfer data properly. Since exFAT does not re­dun­dant­ly store the master data, storage media with the exFAT file system should always be carefully removed. Otherwise, data can be lost and this data may only be re­triev­able following expensive data recovery under certain cir­cum­stances.

The lack of com­pres­sion support also makes exFAT an un­suit­able choice for certain ap­pli­ca­tions. Therefore, if you solely work with Windows and do not consider cross-platform data exchange to be important to your work, NTFS remains the better option – par­tic­u­lar­ly since the older system performs well in terms of speed.

The exFAT file system is a modern extension of the classic FAT file systems. In other words, exFAT is better than FAT32. The dif­fer­ences primarily concern the extended file and partition size as well as improved com­pat­i­bil­i­ty. A com­par­i­son to NFTS is rather un­suit­able. NTFS is Microsoft’s standard file system.

Being a file system optimized for flash storage media, exFAT is not a direct com­peti­tor of NTFS. Instead, it rep­re­sents a useful addition to transfer files across different platforms, from one operating system or storage media to another – quickly, reliably, and ideally without any errors. However, NTFS is still the faster system.

Despite its technical ad­van­tages, the exFAT file system is not as well-known among users as FAT32 or NTFS, yet. But the format is regularly used by man­u­fac­tur­ers and is wide­spread. The fact that Microsoft only published the detailed spec­i­fi­ca­tions of exFAT in 2019 has un­doubt­ed­ly played a role in the format remaining rel­a­tive­ly unknown.