Possible to format a 64gb USB to two partitions - One FAT32, other NTFS?

The reason I ask is because I want to have a FAT32 partition for my 360 and another for PC usage. Is it possible?

The reason I ask is because I want to have a FAT32 partition for my games console and another for PC usage. Is it possible?

GulliversTravel

You certainly -can-, although depending on what you're trying to do it may not be a good idea. NTFS (which is what I assume you mean, since NTSC is a television signal standard) is not ideal for USB sticks. If you use NTFS format, you have to manually disconnect the USB device in Windows before physically removing it from the USB port or you risk data loss because NTFS does "write-behind" in the background after a copy operation. ExFAT is the file system that modern Windows supports that is specifically designed for flash media.

What console(s) are you trying to use this stick on? Xbox 360 supports ExFAT to my knowledge so you don't need to break out the file systems. PS3 does not (and probably not the Wii-U), to my knowledge, but if the stick is only 64GB you can just do the entire thing in FAT32. FAT32 supports up to 2TB volumes, but it limits you to 4GB on individual files.

What exactly are you trying to do?

-Byshop

[QUOTE="GulliversTravel"]

The reason I ask is because I want to have a FAT32 partition for my games console and another for PC usage. Is it possible?

Byshop

You certainly -can-, although depending on what you're trying to do it may not be a good idea. NTFS (which is what I assume you mean, since NTSC is a television signal standard) is not ideal for USB sticks. If you use NTFS format, you have to manually disconnect the USB device in Windows before physically removing it from the USB port or you risk data loss because NTFS does "write-behind" in the background after a copy operation. ExFAT is the file system that modern Windows supports that is specifically designed for flash media.

What console(s) are you trying to use this stick on? Xbox 360 supports ExFAT to my knowledge so you don't need to break out the file systems. PS3 does not (and probably not the Wii-U), to my knowledge, but if the stick is only 64GB you can just do the entire thing in FAT32. FAT32 supports up to 2TB volumes, but it limits you to 4GB on individual files.

What exactly are you trying to do?

-Byshop

No reason to use NTSC,  just format it to FAT32, PC won't have any problems using it.

[QUOTE="GulliversTravel"]

The reason I ask is because I want to have a FAT32 partition for my games console and another for PC usage. Is it possible?

Byshop

You certainly -can-, although depending on what you're trying to do it may not be a good idea. NTFS (which is what I assume you mean, since NTSC is a television signal standard) is not ideal for USB sticks. If you use NTFS format, you have to manually disconnect the USB device in Windows before physically removing it from the USB port or you risk data loss because NTFS does "write-behind" in the background after a copy operation. ExFAT is the file system that modern Windows supports that is specifically designed for flash media.

What console(s) are you trying to use this stick on? Xbox 360 supports ExFAT to my knowledge so you don't need to break out the file systems. PS3 does not (and probably not the Wii-U), to my knowledge, but if the stick is only 64GB you can just do the entire thing in FAT32. FAT32 supports up to 2TB volumes, but it limits you to 4GB on individual files.

What exactly are you trying to do?

-Byshop

LOL yep I was thinking if I used the right one. But yes I want to use half of it on my 360 as a memory unit, when your console formats it for use it doesnt have a 4gb limit. But yeah I want to use the other half on my PC and the 4gb limit is way too small, how is ExFat for files bigger?GulliversTravel

To be clear, the 4GB file limit means that you cannot have a single file that's larger than 4GB, not that you can only put 4GB worth of files on the stick. This means taht you'd have problems with large movie files, hard drive or DVD/Blu-ray image files, etc but that's about it. If you wanted to put files larger than 4GB on a 32GB partition, you'd only be able to fit about 8 of them on there before you ran out of space anyway.

The 360 stores its memory card data on your USB stick as files in the file system in 1GB chunks, so it's compatible with FAT32. You already -can- share your USB stick between your 360 and your PC without having to partition the stick. If you format the entire stick as a single 64GB partition, any space not reserved by the 360 is just additional room in the file system available for you to put PC files on.

If you plan on only using your stick on your Windows PC and Xbox 360, then you can just do a 64GB ExFAT partition and be done. If you want it to be potentially compatible with other consoles, too, then you can create a 64GB FAT32 partition and be done, understanding that you won't be able to use the stick to move large ISO files (but with 32GB of leftover storage you wouldn't be able to move much anyway).

-Byshop

You can disable disk-caching on the filesystem and you won't have to eject the disk everytime, it'll act just like FAT32 and you can remove it whenever.Marfoo

You can, but then the op would have to actually partition his stick to use it on the 360 console and there are other disadvantages. It makes a lot more sense to just do one 64GB ExFAT partition.

-Byshop

[QUOTE="Marfoo"]You can disable disk-caching on the filesystem and you won't have to eject the disk everytime, it'll act just like FAT32 and you can remove it whenever.Byshop

You can, but then the op would have to actually partition his stick to use it on the 360 console and there are other disadvantages. It makes a lot more sense to just do one 64GB ExFAT partition.

-Byshop

Ejecting a disk...

I haven't done that since 64MB flash drives, when its done copying, I just rip it out.

[QUOTE="Byshop"]

[QUOTE="Marfoo"]You can disable disk-caching on the filesystem and you won't have to eject the disk everytime, it'll act just like FAT32 and you can remove it whenever.GTR12

You can, but then the op would have to actually partition his stick to use it on the 360 console and there are other disadvantages. It makes a lot more sense to just do one 64GB ExFAT partition.

-Byshop

Ejecting a disk...

I haven't done that since 64MB flash drives, when its done copying, I just rip it out.

[QUOTE="GulliversTravel"]LOL yep I was thinking if I used the right one. But yes I want to use half of it on my 360 as a memory unit, when your console formats it for use it doesnt have a 4gb limit. But yeah I want to use the other half on my PC and the 4gb limit is way too small, how is ExFat for files bigger?Byshop

To be clear, the 4GB file limit means that you cannot have a single file that's larger than 4GB, not that you can only put 4GB worth of files on the stick. This means taht you'd have problems with large movie files, hard drive or DVD/Blu-ray image files, etc but that's about it. If you wanted to put files larger than 4GB on a 32GB partition, you'd only be able to fit about 8 of them on there before you ran out of space anyway.

The 360 stores its memory card data on your USB stick as files in the file system in 1GB chunks, so it's compatible with FAT32. You already -can- share your USB stick between your 360 and your PC without having to partition the stick. If you format the entire stick as a single 64GB partition, any space not reserved by the 360 is just additional room in the file system available for you to put PC files on.

If you plan on only using your stick on your Windows PC and Xbox 360, then you can just do a 64GB ExFAT partition and be done. If you want it to be potentially compatible with other consoles, too, then you can create a 64GB FAT32 partition and be done, understanding that you won't be able to use the stick to move large ISO files (but with 32GB of leftover storage you wouldn't be able to move much anyway).

-Byshop

[QUOTE="GTR12"]

Ejecting a disk...

I haven't done that since 64MB flash drives, when its done copying, I just rip it out.

kraken2109

LMAO, great pic

[QUOTE="Byshop"]

[QUOTE="GulliversTravel"]LOL yep I was thinking if I used the right one. But yes I want to use half of it on my 360 as a memory unit, when your console formats it for use it doesnt have a 4gb limit. But yeah I want to use the other half on my PC and the 4gb limit is way too small, how is ExFat for files bigger?GulliversTravel

To be clear, the 4GB file limit means that you cannot have a single file that's larger than 4GB, not that you can only put 4GB worth of files on the stick. This means taht you'd have problems with large movie files, hard drive or DVD/Blu-ray image files, etc but that's about it. If you wanted to put files larger than 4GB on a 32GB partition, you'd only be able to fit about 8 of them on there before you ran out of space anyway.

The 360 stores its memory card data on your USB stick as files in the file system in 1GB chunks, so it's compatible with FAT32. You already -can- share your USB stick between your 360 and your PC without having to partition the stick. If you format the entire stick as a single 64GB partition, any space not reserved by the 360 is just additional room in the file system available for you to put PC files on.

If you plan on only using your stick on your Windows PC and Xbox 360, then you can just do a 64GB ExFAT partition and be done. If you want it to be potentially compatible with other consoles, too, then you can create a 64GB FAT32 partition and be done, understanding that you won't be able to use the stick to move large ISO files (but with 32GB of leftover storage you wouldn't be able to move much anyway).

-Byshop

Yes, that is what I suggested in my previous post. As long as the only console you want to use the USB stick with is a 360 then creating a single 64GB ExFAT partition is best way to go. ExFAT has no practical file size limit.

The space reserved by the Xbox will just show up as a bunch of files in a hidden directory. These files -are- your "memory stick" and any space in the partition left over can be used for whatever you want. I personally use a 64GB stick that I share between a PS3 and 360 as a memory card for each. Since the PS3 doesn't support ExFAT (it's a Microsoft standard), I used FAT32 instead. Unless you want to share the USB stick with a console or system that requires FAT32, you should just use ExFAT.

-Byshop