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I overcame this 4GB file problem by formatting my USB stick to NTFS. But Linux or other OS's or devices doesn't support this format.

Is it possible to have a program inside my USB stick, which would create its own file system, so that there would be a copy of this program for all most common OS's around, and thus make it possible to transfer over 4GB files between any computers easily?

This program could be placed on the FAT32 filesystem, so it will be readable for (almost) every OS or device. So when I would use this program, I would use it only when I need to store files over 4GB, other files could be simply placed on the FAT32 drive for easier access (in the case when a device cannot run the program, such as music players).

The only program I know that can do this kind of a thing, is a program which would split the files into 4GB chunks, but that is a bit tedious to use, because I have to rebuild the file each time I read it; that takes a lot of time.

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  • Such a program wouldn't work on Linux or other OS's or devices, either...
    – u1686_grawity
    Apr 2, 2013 at 14:54
  • @grawity, why not? If the USB stick uses FAT32, and there is a copy of the program for all most common OS's, why wouldnt it work?
    – Rookie
    Apr 2, 2013 at 14:54
  • Related: Cross platform filesystem
    – Marco
    Apr 2, 2013 at 15:51
  • @Rookie what if one day you plug the drive onto another OS and you don't have the program ready on the drive? That seems a poor solution. No one would care about writing that because NTFS is supported in every major OS for years. The only true portable filesystem is UDF
    – phuclv
    Nov 25, 2016 at 10:02

2 Answers 2

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Unfortunately there are no perfect solutions to this problem. NTFS is probably the best one ATM as most Linux setups have supported it well for some years now - even some embedded systems where things tend to be stripped to the bone for space (drive and/or memory) reasons (for example some set-top media players support NTFS). MS's answer is exFAT, but while the last couple of MacOS releases support it, the relevant Linux module has only recently reached stable status (so won't be as commonly available as you'd like yet) and in my experience exFAT is not yet as commonly supported as NTFS (though a lot of consumer media devices are starting to support it so this will change fairly quickly).

Another option is to use ext2/3/4 and a Windows filesystem driver like ext2fsd (http://www.ext2fsd.com/) on your Windows boxes, though if you might ever need to use the drive on a locked-down Windows box (at a library or place of work for instance) where you can't install the ext* filesystem driver you'll be just as stuck as those occasions where you can't read NTFS. Also I'm not sure if ext2fsd will currently work on Windows 8 and Server 2012.

Other than that, you are stuck with FAT32 and tools/scripts that split files into smaller chunks when they are over 4Gb.

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Format it to FAT32. It should support upto 2TB.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/184006

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    Umm, i have used FAT32 before, and even the name "32" declares it to allow only 4GB files. Did i miss something?
    – Rookie
    Apr 2, 2013 at 14:57
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    @Ali you mix up max partition size with max file size. With FAT32 the max file size is indeed limited to 4GB!
    – Simon
    Apr 2, 2013 at 15:02
  • @Simon Ah! Apologies, misread the question. Thanks for the clarification.
    – Ali
    Apr 2, 2013 at 15:04

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