I'm trying to copy a 5.3 GB file from hard disk to a USB 3.0 SanDisk 16 GB USB key.
I've tried this both from OS X as well as from Linux. In both cases the file is
partially copied and then the operation fails. On OS X it fails with a message
like "file too large". I had to use the split
command to split the file into
several 100MB chunks and then copy the directory containing them to the USB
key in order to copy the file.
Then, on Linux I reassembled the files
with the cat
command into a single file, sending the output to the
computer's hard drive. However, when I tried to reassemble the
split files into one file with the cat
command and sent the
output to the USB key, the USB key still did not accept the
resulting file, which again, was too large, and complained
with the error message
"cat: write error: Protocol error".
When I inspected the successful output with:
$ ls -l --block-size=M MyFileName
the file size was exactly:
4096M (that is, 4 GB).
This seems like a limitation tied to the USB key's default filesystem with which it was formatted prior to being sold.
When I examine its filesystem under Windows 7 by right-clicking on the USB disk and inspecting its properties I can see that the filesystem is a FAT32 filesystem.
Can I somehow, starting from Windows, format the USB key so that it uses a filesystem which will accept my 5.3 GB file, and can at the same time be read from and written to from all of OS X, Linux, and Windows 7? What filesystem should I format the USB key to in order to achieve this very purpose?