He also wrote the File Formatter, which has a file size limit of 32Gb for the Fat32 format for the same reason: it wasn’t supposed to be permanent, but it hasn’t changed for over 20 years.
I was thinking about this recently, so it is a bug, not a feature
Yes, the final line of my comment explains that, it’s just that the cluster size in Fat32 has a lower bound so if you have files smaller than the cluster then they take a whole cluster, and that can lead to cluster slack that is vast majority wasted space.
I was thinking about this recently, so it is a bug, not a feature
If it has been a bug for 20+ years, we can safely say it’s a feature for backwards compatibility.
I mean, it was intentional in a way, so the definition of bug is hazy, but the functioning version would be the ExFAT format.
But the problem isn’t in Fat32 itself, as you can format larger disks in that format just fine
Yes, the final line of my comment explains that, it’s just that the cluster size in Fat32 has a lower bound so if you have files smaller than the cluster then they take a whole cluster, and that can lead to cluster slack that is vast majority wasted space.