Why fat16 limit 2gb

Asked 3 years, 5 months ago. Active 3 years, 5 months ago. Viewed 12k times. Improve this question. VortixDev VortixDev 1, 2 2 gold badges 13 13 silver badges 22 22 bronze badges. Thanks for your comment, I've added information to my question. Understand that FAT12, FAT16, and FAT32 were designed at different times by different individuals and with differing conflicting requirements which had changed considerably over the years.

There was a desire to maximize the capabilities of the file systems while at the same time maintaining efficiency with the limited technology of the day. Compromises had to be made. The result was some apparently odd values and inconsistencies between file systems. DavidPostill Thanks for your correction, I've amended the question.

How come it's -2 bytes instead of -1 byte? Show 3 more comments. Active Oldest Votes. File size on FAT is stored in a bit field. Improve this answer. Add a comment. Part of this would depend on the size of the cluster. SeanC SeanC 3, 2 2 gold badges 18 18 silver badges 26 26 bronze badges. You can see these values in Table A. Keep in mind that the maximum number of clusters may not always be used.

This means that a 1-GB drive uses half as many clusters as a 2-GB drive, or 32, clusters. Table B: FAT32 can support smaller cluster sizes. Editor's Picks. Linux kernel 5. Windows Do these 11 things immediately. Top 5 things to do about your tech before you die. If you're not using a kanban board, you're not as productive as you could be. Show Comments. Hide Comments.

My Profile Log out. Join Discussion. As such, it offers greatly improved disk utilisation over FAT The Home edition of Windows XP allows users to keep their information private to themselves, while the Professional version supports access control and encryption of individual files and folders.

The file system is inherently more resilient than FAT, being less likely to suffer damage in the event of a system crash and it being more likely that any damage is recoverable via the chkdsk. NTFS also journalises all file changes, so as to allow the system to be rolled back to an earlier, working state in the event of some catastrophic problem rendering the system inoperable. The smaller the cluster size, the more efficiently a disk stores information because unused space within a cluster cannot be used by other files; the more clusters supported, the larger the volumes or partitions that can be created.

The table below provides a comparison of volume and default cluster sizes for the different Windows file systems still commonly in use:.

FAT8 existed before 16 did.