SDHC, SDXC Cards and exFAT file system - 4GB+ file size limit?

I have a Kingston SDHC card that is 32GB and Class 4.

It is formatted for FAT32 and I cannot store any files larger than 4GB on this card.

I have heard that it can be reformatted with the exFAT or NTFS file system to allow larger files.

Is this correct? If so, what do I need to do to update this to exFAT or NTFS without bricking the card.

 

I just format them using Windows. Go to my computer, find the "Removable Disk" in question, then right-click and Format to NTFS, FAT, FAT32, or exFAT. Never had any problem with that method personally.

EDIT* Also, NTFS and exFAT will both accommodate file sizes larger than 4GB. exFAT's file size limit is 16GB, while NTFS's is 16TB in it's current implementation. Also note that most devices will only read the FAT/FAT32 file systems and only lately has exFAT been being recognized. NTFS is still Microsoft Proprietary.

 

This. I recommend going this route, since if you use the command line, unless you ensure to include the additional flag, '/Q', the format command will not perform a quick format, and will write zeros to each sector of the card.

 

great, thanks very much - so, if I reformat to exFAT or NTFS, then I won't be able to read it on my Mac, and maybe not on other devices like printers, etc., but I should still be able to read it on my Windows laptop, correct?

 

Nope. Mac won't read/write to it without at least NFTS 3G installed. Now I'm not sure about Mac support of exFAT, but I'm pretty sure it won't read/write to it. For cross compatibility with Mac/PC, your best bet it probably going to be to format the card to NTFS and just use NTFS 3G on your Mac. And no printer or media device I know of will read NTFS/exFAT.... PS3 included, as it only reads FAT32/FAT formats.

 

Some media devices can work with NTFS. For example: WD TV HD Media Player ( WDBABF0000NBK ) (Click the Specifications tab.)

But, many don't. exFAT is relatively new, and I haven't seen too many devices that support it yet.

I think Mac OS X can read NTFS out of the box these days, although writing to it may require extra software.

You can also actually partition the SDHC card, so you can store smaller files on the FAT32 partition which pretty much everything can read, and the >4gb files you can store on the NTFS partition.

Oh, and you can't actually brick your SD card (as far as I know, unless you cut it in half or something)... it's not a device, it's just storage... if you mess it up, you can just reformat it.

 

The theoretical maximum file sizes in both NTFS and exFAT are 16EiB as the file size is stored in a 64-bit number in both filesystems. ExFAT can support a file system of 127PiB, which is smaller than 16EiB, and Microsoft doest recommend filesystems that big yet. So, I don't know where you get 16GB from.

An issue is where do you want to use the SDHC card. The SD association say a that the SD card is to be formatted in FAT16, the SDHC in FAT32, and the SDXC in exFAT. Although the OS may allow you to front the card in other file systems, a camera or cell phone mat force you to format in the proper file system.

Currently, only Microsoft OS support exFAT, so using it today on Linux, Unix, Mac OS, etc is not supported. Also, many devices, including GPS, PS3, Xbox and other gaming stations don't support exFAT (or in many cases NTFS), so you have to adk yourself, where will you use the card.

 

thanks to all for the great info!

I have a few of these 32GB cards and I would like to keep one of them always in my laptop as a documents folder that can hold files larger than 4GB, since my SSD is limited to 320GB. It would be nice to be able to transfer files to my Mac easily this way, but it seems there is no way to make it OSX compatible and avoid the 4GB filesize limit.

 

Nice first post. I meant the way Windows currently handles things.