Draggng mp4 file onto Kingston flash drive

Dan Sherman wrote on 10/19/2014, 7:53 PM
Project is 4 GB, but dragged when to 16 GB flash drive window says file is too large for destination.
Math isn't one of my strong suits, but I tihnk 4 should go into 16 four times.
What's up here?
Any ideas?
ACTUALly SAYS mp4 is too large for destination file system,...that information may help.

Thanks,

Dan

Comments

ushere wrote on 10/19/2014, 8:27 PM
is your usb ntfs formatted or fat32? if latter it has 4gb limit...
GeeBax wrote on 10/19/2014, 8:59 PM
As Leslie says, it is the drive formatting. Try formatting the drive again and choose ExFAT rather than FAT32. Then it should be fine.
Dan Sherman wrote on 10/19/2014, 10:00 PM
Yes, it is FAT32.
Thanks gentlemen!
John_Cline wrote on 10/19/2014, 10:20 PM
To expand on that a bit further, no single file can be over 4GB on a drive which has been formatted as FAT32. Most all flash drives come formatted as FAT32 because it is common to both PCs and MACs.

NTFS is a proprietary files system by Microsoft. Mac OS X 10.3 and later include read-only support for NTFS-formatted drives. For all intents and purposes, NTFS formatted drives have no practical file size restriction. However, because of all of the overhead involved with NTFS and a lot of behind the scenes housekeeping, it is not a good idea to use NTFS formatting for flash drives.

Like NTFS, exFAT has no 4GB file size limit and is intended for use on flash drives. However, storage devices formatted as exFAT cannot exchange data with equipment not supporting the format. Most consumer electronics do not support exFAT, which requires acquisition of a commercial license from Microsoft, which rules out its legal distribution as part of open source operating systems.

If you intend to only use these flash drives on Win7 or Win8 machines, the exFAT is your best choice. exFAT support can be added to WinXP through a free update from Microsoft.
JackW wrote on 10/19/2014, 10:46 PM
You don't have to reformat the drive, which will remove everything on it. Instead, use the command line and enter "convert D: /fs:ntfs" ( where "D" is your drive designator and without the quotation marks.)

We do this with every USB thumb drive that's brought into our shop. It changes the file system without deleting data from the drive.

Jack
GeeBax wrote on 10/19/2014, 11:36 PM
[I]'Most consumer electronics do not support exFAT, which requires acquisition of a commercial license from Microsoft.'[/I]

Interesting, I did a test some time ago taking a flash drive, formatted in ExFAT, to a local consumer electronics store to see how many flat panel TV receivers would accept it, and almost all of them did. And those that did not seemed unable to recognise the file type I used, not the formatting of the drive.
John_Cline wrote on 10/20/2014, 12:24 AM
NTFS is a vastly more complicated file system, just remember to always use the "Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media" icon in the Taskbar notification area every time before physically unplugging the drive from the computer. If you unplug the drive without using the Safely Remove Hardware icon, there is a serious risk of corrupting the data on the removable disk.