Formatting a USB 2 Thumb Drive

I recently bought a Kingston 4GB USB 2 Thumb Drive.
I use it mainly to store Edited Pictures.
I do not NEED to format it but I CAN, with Win Xp.
Is there any advantage in formatting it in FAT 32 vs FAT 16? or vice
versa? Somewhat OT, but guys in this NG know everything.
Bob Williams

On Wed, 06 Feb 2008 01:31:07 -0800, Bob Williams <mytbobnospam@cox.net>
wrote in <v7fqj.84067$Rw3.51046@newsfe06.phx>:

>I recently bought a Kingston 4GB USB 2 Thumb Drive.
>I use it mainly to store Edited Pictures.
>I do not NEED to format it but I CAN, with Win Xp.
>Is there any advantage in formatting it in FAT 32 vs FAT 16? or vice
>versa? Somewhat OT, but guys in this NG know everything.

Not a good reason.

--
Best regards,
John Navas
Panasonic DMC-FZ8 (and several others)

Bob Williams <mytbobnospam@cox.net> wrote:
>I recently bought a Kingston 4GB USB 2 Thumb Drive.
>I use it mainly to store Edited Pictures.
>I do not NEED to format it but I CAN, with Win Xp.

Sure. As far as the OS is concerned it just another drive.

>Is there any advantage in formatting it in FAT 32 vs FAT 16? or vice
>versa?

FAT16 is limited to 2GB, so you would have to create 2 partitions to use the
full 4GB. FAT32 can handle all 4GB as a single partition.
OTOH some OS (i.e. Windows NT4 and earlier and Windows 95 and earlier) don't
support FAT32.

For more details than you ever wanted to know see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FAT16

jue

On Wed, 06 Feb 2008 01:31:07 -0800, Bob Williams wrote:

> I recently bought a Kingston 4GB USB 2 Thumb Drive. I use it mainly to
> store Edited Pictures. I do not NEED to format it but I CAN, with Win
> Xp. Is there any advantage in formatting it in FAT 32 vs FAT 16? or vice
> versa? Somewhat OT, but guys in this NG know everything. Bob Williams

Yes. The normal implementations of FAT16 are limited to 2gb.

On 6 Feb 2008 16:33:55 GMT, ray <ray@zianet.com> wrote in
<60u5rjF1qbhnmU6@mid.individual.net>:

>On Wed, 06 Feb 2008 01:31:07 -0800, Bob Williams wrote:
>
>> I recently bought a Kingston 4GB USB 2 Thumb Drive. I use it mainly to
>> store Edited Pictures. I do not NEED to format it but I CAN, with Win
>> Xp. Is there any advantage in formatting it in FAT 32 vs FAT 16? or vice
>> versa? Somewhat OT, but guys in this NG know everything. Bob Williams
>
>Yes. The normal implementations of FAT16 are limited to 2gb.

2 GB can be exceeded with a larger sector size, as in certain M-O
drives.

--
Best regards,
John Navas
Panasonic DMC-FZ8 (and several others)

Bob Williams wrote:
> I recently bought a Kingston 4GB USB 2 Thumb Drive.
> I use it mainly to store Edited Pictures.
> I do not NEED to format it but I CAN, with Win Xp.
> Is there any advantage in formatting it in FAT 32 vs FAT 16? or vice
> versa? Somewhat OT, but guys in this NG know everything.
> Bob Williams
Yes there is. It can be used by almost any other computer OS.

On Wed, 06 Feb 2008 16:40:42 +0000, John Navas wrote:

> On 6 Feb 2008 16:33:55 GMT, ray <ray@zianet.com> wrote in
> <60u5rjF1qbhnmU6@mid.individual.net>:
>
>>On Wed, 06 Feb 2008 01:31:07 -0800, Bob Williams wrote:
>>
>>> I recently bought a Kingston 4GB USB 2 Thumb Drive. I use it mainly to
>>> store Edited Pictures. I do not NEED to format it but I CAN, with Win
>>> Xp. Is there any advantage in formatting it in FAT 32 vs FAT 16? or
>>> vice versa? Somewhat OT, but guys in this NG know everything. Bob
>>> Williams
>>
>>Yes. The normal implementations of FAT16 are limited to 2gb.
>
> 2 GB can be exceeded with a larger sector size, as in certain M-O
> drives.

Fine - what part of "normal implementations" did you not understand?

On 6 Feb 2008 18:46:28 GMT, ray <ray@zianet.com> wrote in
<60udk4F1t2tgkU2@mid.individual.net>:

>On Wed, 06 Feb 2008 16:40:42 +0000, John Navas wrote:
>
>> On 6 Feb 2008 16:33:55 GMT, ray <ray@zianet.com> wrote in
>> <60u5rjF1qbhnmU6@mid.individual.net>:
>>
>>>On Wed, 06 Feb 2008 01:31:07 -0800, Bob Williams wrote:
>>>
>>>> I recently bought a Kingston 4GB USB 2 Thumb Drive. I use it mainly to
>>>> store Edited Pictures. I do not NEED to format it but I CAN, with Win
>>>> Xp. Is there any advantage in formatting it in FAT 32 vs FAT 16? or
>>>> vice versa? Somewhat OT, but guys in this NG know everything. Bob
>>>> Williams
>>>
>>>Yes. The normal implementations of FAT16 are limited to 2gb.
>>
>> 2 GB can be exceeded with a larger sector size, as in certain M-O
>> drives.
>
>Fine - what part of "normal implementations" did you not understand?

What makes you think those aren't "normal implementations"?

--
Best regards,
John Navas
Panasonic DMC-FZ8 (and several others)

"ray" <ray@zianet.com> a écrit dans le message de news:
60u5rjF1qbhnmU6@mid.individual.net...
> On Wed, 06 Feb 2008 01:31:07 -0800, Bob Williams wrote:
>
>> I recently bought a Kingston 4GB USB 2 Thumb Drive. I use it mainly to
>> store Edited Pictures. I do not NEED to format it but I CAN, with Win
>> Xp. Is there any advantage in formatting it in FAT 32 vs FAT 16? or vice
>> versa? Somewhat OT, but guys in this NG know everything. Bob Williams
>
> Yes. The normal implementations of FAT16 are limited to 2gb.

Don't forget the number of different files on FAT16 with long file names is
only 256, the limit on FAT32 is much higher, so THAT may be a good reason to
format even a smaller thumb drive in FAT32.

I have a digital fram with "only" 256Mb of internal memory, but by reducing
the file resolution to the screen's resolution, I can pack much more than
256 pictures in the internal memory, but only if I format it in FAT32.

Jean

"jean" <try_to@find.it> wrote:
>
>"ray" <ray@zianet.com> a écrit dans le message de news:
>60u5rjF1qbhnmU6@mid.individual.net...
>> On Wed, 06 Feb 2008 01:31:07 -0800, Bob Williams wrote:
>>
>>> I recently bought a Kingston 4GB USB 2 Thumb Drive. I use it mainly to
>>> store Edited Pictures. I do not NEED to format it but I CAN, with Win
>>> Xp. Is there any advantage in formatting it in FAT 32 vs FAT 16? or vice
>>> versa? Somewhat OT, but guys in this NG know everything. Bob Williams
>>
>> Yes. The normal implementations of FAT16 are limited to 2gb.
>
>Don't forget the number of different files on FAT16 with long file names is
>only 256, the limit on FAT32 is much higher, so THAT may be a good reason to
>format even a smaller thumb drive in FAT32.

Don't forget that this limitation applies to the root directory only. And
that it applies to all root directory entries, including files with 8.3
names in which case the limit is typically 512. It's just that long
filenames use multiple directory entries and thus eat up space faster. And
that FAT16 does support larger root directories, they just need to be
configured at formatting time.

In short: while your comment isn't completely wrong it is still seriously
lacking in substance.

jue

>
>I have a digital fram with "only" 256Mb of internal memory, but by reducing
>the file resolution to the screen's resolution, I can pack much more than
>256 pictures in the internal memory, but only if I format it in FAT32.
>
>Jean
>