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FAT32 uses smaller clusters (4 KB for drives up to 8 GB), resulting in 10 to 15 percent more efficient use of disk space relative to large FAT16 drives. It uses space more efficiently than FAT16. For this reason, FAT32 does not restrict the number of entries in the root folder. The root folder on a FAT32 drive is now an ordinary cluster chain, so it can be located anywhere on the volume. In addition, FAT32 provides the following enhancements:
#Disk genius 32 kb clusters fat32 free
Depending on the size of your files, there is a potential for tens and even hundreds of megabytes more free disk space on larger hard disk drives. A 10-KB file stored in a 32-KB cluster wastes 22 KB of disk space.įAT32 allocates disk space much more efficiently than previous versions of FAT. The space allocated for storing a file is based on the size of the cluster allocation granularity, not the file size. There is no built-in file system security or file compression with FAT16.įAT16 can waste file storage space in larger drives as the size of the cluster increases. To maintain compatibility with MS-DOS, Windows 95, and Windows 98, a FAT16 volume should not be larger than 2 GB. If both the maximum number of clusters and their maximum size (32 KB) are reached, the largest drive is limited to 4 GB on Windows 2000. Each cluster is fixed in size relative to the logical drive. The use of long file names can significantly reduce the number of available entries.įAT16 is limited to 65,536 clusters, but because certain clusters are reserved, it has a practical limit of 65,524. The root folder can manage a maximum of 512 entries.