Print - What are the maximum volume sizes and maximum file sizes for the various Windows file systems?

A. Windows 2000 and later support FAT, FAT32, and NTFS file systems. (The next version of Windows, code-named Longhorn, will support a new file system known as WinFS). The table below lists the maximum volume sizes and maximum file sizes for FAT, FAT32, and NTFS.

	FAT	FAT32	NTFS
Operating systems	All versions of Windows and DOS	Windows .NET Server 2003, Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows 98, Windows 95 OEM Service Release (OSR) 2	Windows .NET Server 2003, Windows XP, and Windows 2000 support NTFS 4 and 5 (previous version of Windows NT support NTFS 4 only)
Maximum volume size	4GB	2TB (although Windows XP lets you format only up to 32GB but can read larger volumes)	You can use 64KB clusters to achieve a 256TB volume (any volumes larger than 2TB must be dynamic, not basic)
Minimum volume size	Floppy disk	512MB	10MB (although some tools let you format a floppy drive as NTFS, see Sysinternals.com)
Maximum file size	4GB	4GB	Size of volume
Maximum files per volume	512 files or folders per folder *	65,534 files or folders per folder *	4,294,967,295

* If you use long filenames, you will reduce the number of files per folder.

DOS, Windows 95/98/Me does only support fat16 volumes with a maximum size of 2GB - Only the NT-based Windows versions support fat16 volumes between 2-4GB

For NTFS, you say that XP and 2000 support NTFS 4 and 5, but XP uses NTFS 3.1 (see http://www.ntfaq.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=25515)

The "Maximum files per volume" given for FAT is not completely correct. FAT is limited to 512 entries in the _root_ folder only; subfolders are allocated with a linked list structure and can accommodate any number of files. MS made this distinction clear in some old Win95 training materials. The closest convenient reference I can find right now is in the Win2000 ResKit (see "FAT16 vs FAT32", and other places). It doesn't explicitly state that subfolders are unlimited in size, but the ResKit always mentions the root folder when it mentions the 512 file limit. Thanks.

It is as the Johan said with one exception. Only NT based windows version 4 and up support 4 GB size for FAT 16. This includes Windows NT4, Windows 2000, Windows XP as of this point in time. This does not include NT version 3 and previous.

Under the column "FAT32" it states that you can only format a hard drive up to 32 GB. I have formatted 60 GB drives with no problem at all. Is the 32 GB correct??

yes, this is correct for FAT32 volumes. http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/home/using/productdoc/en/default.asp?url=/WINDOWSXP/home/using/productdoc/en/choosing_between_NTFS_FAT_and_FAT32.asp

Hi, I was searching for exactly this info. Thanks. I have a question, is there a way to have a file larger than 4Gig on XP Pro? I am capturing a 40min VHS to my pc, it stops at 4.1 gig (1/2 way)??? Thanks Murray

I tried to copy large no of files in a single folder. But when the no of files reached 21,448 an error message was shown. I can't find the exact reason, but after reading this article my doubt was cleared. Thank u.

Hello All, I ran into a problem recently when I tried storing 1,000,000 files (each of 8Kb)in a folder on C:\ drive. The complete scenario is as under... I am copying 250000 files in 4 folders to make up a total of 1,000,000 files. These files will be processed and will be stored in a SQL Server database over the network. My machine gets real slow while its copying the files. It has 512 MB ram P4 processor of 2.4 GHz and Hard Disk space of almost 40 GB. Can anyone please tell me if this is how windows2000 advanced server will behave for 1,000,000 files or there is something that I can adjust to run my machine on a reasonable speed. Right now it takes me almost 30 - 40 minutes to open a folder that has 250000 files in it. Thanks, Aijaz

Hi friends Is there any limitation for the primary partition IDE HDD 40GB to be 2GB inorder to install Windows NT( FAT 16).AlsoI can format and access a 4 GB partion on the same drive with NT4.0 .What is the reason for this 2GB and 4GB limitations? . -Friendly Dracula

I'm using win XP Pro SP2 with NTFS file system, i'll use movie editing, but i have 4 Gb max file size. how i change it ? ( i'm using 80 Gb HDD), 20 Gb on 1st and 60 Gb on 2nd (it's partition)

What the **** is this ******* "Top 20 Artikels" add doing on top of the information picture. Its covering the NTFS information. I get anoid whit thoes ******* aggressive add's evry where in the net. Rgds Dan

with windows 2000 or 20003 is still drive letter limitation (A-Z) and if so is there other mounting points if you ran out of drive letters?

I have a problem with file limitations. I have a surveillance program that connects to 8 IP cameras. The cameras are set with motion detection, they take pictures throughout the day. The problem is, all of the cams' pics are stored on one WinXP box, and the maximum number of files I can get in a folder is 16,384. So if I forget to move the pics off one day, the cams' pics are not captured once the folders reach the 16,384 maximum. The drive is NTFS, and the file name are formatted; cam1_03-15-2005_11-30-30-am.jpg, and no, I cannot change the filenames, I need these for archiving purposes. Thanks!

Is there any way that it is possible to store a file larger than 4GB on a fat32 disk? The file I'm trying to store is 4,5 GB and since I have a laptop I cannot build in a ntfs disk which makes this problem rather annyoing... Any help would be greatly appreciated!

For the question on mounting points, it's possible to mount a unmounted or mounted volume in an empty NTFS directory with graphical tools. You can use command line tools as described in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/205524/en-us#kb1 .

I dual boot ME and XP. For compatibility, when I initially installed XP from ME I formated a SATA 160Gb drive from the ME command line to a single 150Gb FAT32 partition and then installed XP on this partition. Works fine, very few disk related problems.

Has anyone read about additional ntfs volumes I recall reading somewhere that the 256TB size is applicable when combining volumes, like with spanned, mirrored or striped volumes

actually, you can format FAT32 to more than 32GB, but internal limitations of SCANDISK limit you to 32GB. So you're not safe on ME/98 boxes. see http://www.dewassoc.com/kbase/hard_drives/hard_drive_size_barriers.htm for HD/OS size barriers in depth. the individual drives are limited to 2.2TB due to 32-bit addressing limitations, but the volume size apparently can be larger. Now that we have 1TB drives, this limit will soon be a problem and we will need new OSs or an OS patch & new filesystems to run the bigger disks.