FG
💻 Software

Please explain wasted space on an exFAT formatted external hard drive

Fresh5 days ago
Mar 15, 202656158 views
Confidence Score0%
0%

Problem

I recently bought a 750 GB 2.5" hard drive and put it in an external enclosure. It has Advanced Format Technology (AFT), but I use Windows 7, so I assumed I would be safe. I decided to try exFAT, because I was enticed by the reduced overhead For "Allocation unit size" I selected "Default allocation…

Unverified for your environment

Select your OS to check compatibility.

1 Fix

Canonical Fix
Unverified Fix
New Fix – Awaiting Verification

Fix for: Please explain wasted space on an exFAT formatted external hard drive

Low Risk

The default allocation unit (cluster) size in exFAT is much larger than the default allocation unit size in NTFS. As you've noted in your question, exFAT defaults to 256KB, but NTFS defaults to 4KB for volumes larger than 2 GB. Because allocation of…

Awaiting Verification

Be the first to verify this fix

Sign in to verify this fix

Environment