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I have one of these 'Vantec NexStar LX - NST-475LX-BK' drive enclosures. It is a NAS device.

When I write a file to the device using eSata, or a SMB share I cannot write files over 4GB. I think this is because the drive is formatted with FAT32.

But when I access the device using FTP it doesn't matter. I can write files of any size. E.g. I wrote one on there last night which was 30GB.

Does this make any sense? Why? I guess the most important thing for me is data integrity.

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I contacted support, they said 'we are not using windows native Fat32'. What does this mean I wonder? It must be using some Fat32 variation which support bigger files, but it must still be compatible with windows. Makes me a bit nervious. Any ideas? – peter Jun 9 '10 at 21:21
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I contacted support again. I didn't really get a straight answer, but based on what they said I can conclude the following,

The NAS drive has 4 interfaces, eSata, USB, SMB (e.g. \\nasdrive\folder\file), and FTP.

So eSata, and USB expose a Fat32 'interface' to the drive. That means I cannot write files larger than 4GB when using eSata or USB.

When I connect through FTP I connect through an FTP interface to the 'actual drive' which is a linux formatted drive. I guess something like ext3.

So it seems that Fat32 is a fake layer to make the drive compatible with windows when windows connects directly to the drive.

This also means when I use eSata or USB I can read files larger than 4GB if they are already on the drive.

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omg, that's the dumbest thing i've ever heard. who thought it'd be a good idea to make a nas that pretends its internal drives are FAT32?? (thanks for posting the update, tho. i'm not calling your post dumb; just the hardware design.) – quack quixote Jun 10 '10 at 21:30
Well I cannot prove it completely. The support guy I was emailing said this 'The maximum possible size for a file on a FAT32 volume is 4G and the format utility is from Linux'. But I definately remember the volume being Fat32 when I plugged in the eSata. The stuff above I just guessed based on his comments and the evidence using the device. – peter Jun 11 '10 at 1:31
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