Is there any difference between a file system FAT32 and a FAT?

Difference Between FAT32 and FAT16:

1. FAT32 and FAT16 are both a type of file system: FAT32 is for FAT16, and it is a kind of file allocation table like FAT16, which can be simply understood as the difference between 32-bit and 16-bit.

2. FAT32 supports management of larger disk space than FAT16:

1) FAT16 each partition can only support a maximum of 2GB under Win9X DOS, that is to say, larger than 2GB should be divided into multiple partitions, and later due to the emergence of Win2000, FAT16 has been expanded (also known as VFAT), and the maximum supported capacity has increased from 2GB to 4GB.

2) FAT32 can support a maximum of 2TB (2048GB) per partition.

3. At the same partition size, the space occupied by each cluster under FAT32 is smaller than that under FAT16.

4. Read/write speed problem: Since the total number of clusters that FAT16 can support is much smaller than that of FAT32, FAT16 is faster than FAT32 in terms of file addressing, especially in slow systems, such as low host frequency, slow disk speed (such as using the so-called low speed stick), etc., there will be more obvious differences.

Difference between FAT and FAT32,1 Advantages of the FAT32 file system: Compared to FAT, FAT can only handle drives with a capacity of less than 2GB, while FAT32 can create a single drive of any capacity. FAT32 stores files more efficiently and allows the hard drive to hold more content.

The main difference between FAT16 and FAT32 is the size of the cluster, but there are several other differences. FAT32 can allocate each unit finely, and can add more entries to the root directory.

A brief introduction to the advantages of FAT32, FAT32 can allocate disk space more efficiently than FAT16. The root folder of the FAT32 volume is a normal cluster chain, so it can be located anywhere in the volume, so the FAT32 can support the number of entries with more roots, and the FAT16 can only have 512. Since the FAT32 uses smaller clusters than the FAT16, it is possible to create tall volumes up to 32GB.

Advantages of the FAT32 file system: Compared to FAT, which can only handle drives with a capacity of less than 2GB, FAT32 can create a single drive of any capacity. FAT32 stores files more efficiently and allows the hard drive to hold more content.

It means that the file storage format supported by the USB flash drive is FAT32.

The method and data structure used by the file system to specify the storage of files on a device or partition; That is, the method of organizing files on a storage device. The software organization in the operating system that is responsible for managing and storing file information.

The file system consists of three parts: the interface of the file system, the collection of software for manipulating and managing objects, and the objects and properties. From a system point of view, a file system is a system that organizes and allocates space for file storage devices, is responsible for file storage, and protects and retrieves stored files.

FAT32 is developed from FAT and FAT16, which has the advantage of good stability and compatibility, can be fully compatible with WIN 9X and earlier versions, and is easy to maintain. The disadvantage is that the security is poor, and it can only support a maximum of 32GB partitions, and a single file can only support a maximum of 4GB.

The FAT (File Allocation Table) file system is a file system used by the Windows operating system, and its development process has gone through three stages: FAT12, FAT16, and FAT32.

FAT file system".ClustersAs a unit of data, a "cluster" consists of a contiguous set of sectors, and the number of sectors contained in the cluster must beAn integer power of 2。The maximum value of the cluster is 64 sectors, i.e., 32kb. All clusters fromStart numbering, and each cluster has its own address number.

User files and directories are stored in clusters. There are two important structures in the data structure of the FAT file system: file allocation tables and directory entries.

The contents of files and folders are stored in clusters, and if a file or folder needs more space than one cluster, use the FAT table to describe how to find the other cluster. The FAT structure is used to indicate the next cluster of the file, and also to indicate the differential land status of the cluster, and the main difference between the three file systems is the size of the FAT item.

Each file and folder in the FAT file system is assigned a directory entry that records the Chinese file name, size, file content start address, and other metadata.

In the FAT file system, the data of the file system is recorded in ".Boot Sector Medium (DBR).", the boot sector is located throughout the file systemNo. 0 friend quarrels with the sector, which is part of the hidden area of the file system (also known as the reserved area), which we call the DBR (DoBoot Record) sector, which records the start location, size, number of FAT tables, and size of the file system. In the FAT file system, use ".Sector address"And".Cluster address"There are two ways of address management, because only the data area where user data is stored is managed by clusters (except for the root directory of FAT12 and FAT16), all clusters are located in the data area, and the other file system management data areas are not managed by clusters, and these areas are managed by sector addresses. The starting sector of the file system isSector 0.

Next, create a new file on the desktop and drag it into the logical partition j (PS: Don't right-click on the disk, but create a new file on the desktop and pull it in).

The number of reserved sectors of FAT32 is more commonSector.

The Chinese name of the fat table is the file allocation table, which is used to point to the file storage location, and its structure is introduced next

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Analysis: Before the introduction of the FAT32 file system, the file system commonly used by PCs was FAT16. Systems such as MS-DOS-based and WIN 95 all use FAT16 file system.

Under Win 9X, FAT16 supports partitions up to 2GB. We know that computers keep their chatters in areas on the hard disk called "clusters." The smaller the cluster used, the more efficient it is to hold information.

In the case of FAT16, the larger the partition, the larger the cluster, the lower the storage efficiency, which will inevitably cause a waste of storage space. And with the continuous improvement of computer hardware and applications, the FAT16 file system can no longer adapt well to the requirements of the system. In this case, an enhanced file system, FAT32, was introduced.

Compared with FAT16, FAT32 has the following characteristics:

1.Compared with the FAT16, the biggest advantage of the FAT32 is that it can support a disk size of up to 2TB (2047GB), but it cannot support partitions smaller than 512MB. Win 2000 based on FAT32 can support partitions up to 32GB; Whereas, FAT16-based WIN 2000 supports partitions up to 4GB.

2.Thanks to the smaller clusters, the FAT32 file system can store information more efficiently. For example, if the size of two partitions is 2GB, one partition uses the FAT16 file system and the other partition uses the FAT32 file system.

The cluster size of the FAT16 partition is 32 KB, while the cluster of the FAT32 partition is only 4 KB in size. In this way, the storage efficiency of FAT32 is much higher than that of FAT16, which can usually be increased by 15%.

3.The FAT32 file system can be relocated to the root and using a backup copy of the FAT. In addition, the boot record of the FAT32 partition is contained in a structure containing critical data, reducing the likelihood of a computer system crash.

The names of a system assignment format, including NTFS, FAT32, and FAT16

FAT is the earliest 16-bit file system.

FAT32 is a Windows 98 standard file system.

Because Windows 98 is a standard 32-bit operating system, 32 is added to the end of the original FAT to distinguish it.

Now the small USB flash drive is generally chosen fat32, unless you are a windows95 system.

For larger USB flash drives, you can already select the NTFS file system.

NTFS is the most commonly used file system for 2000, XP, and Win7.

One of the advantages of NTFS compared with FAT32 is that you can set the permissions of a file, and you can set a file to read-only, writable, executable and a series of other attributes.

I hope it helps you, Encyclopedia: FAT32 is a kind of hard disk partition format for Windows system. This format uses a 32-bit file allocation table, which greatly enhances its disk management capabilities, breaking through the FAT16 limit of only 2 GB per partition.

Due to the decline in the production cost of hard disks and the increasing capacity of hard disks, after using the FAT32 partition format, we can define a large hard disk as a partition instead of dividing it into several partitions, which greatly facilitates the management of disks. It has been replaced by the more high-performance NTFS partition format.