ExFAT

exFAT (Extensible File Allocation Table) is a introduced by Microsoft in 2006 and optimized for flash memory such as USB flash drives and SD cards. exFAT was proprietary until 28 August 2019, when Microsoft published its specification. Microsoft owns patents on several elements of its design. exFAT can be used where NTFS is not a feasible solution (due to data-structure overhead), but where a greater than that of the standard FAT32 file system (i.e. 4 GB) is required. exFAT has been adopted by the SD Association as the default file system for SDXC cards larger than 32 GB. Windows 8 and later versions natively support exFAT boot, and support the installation of the system in a special way to run in the exFAT volume. exFAT was introduced in late 2006 as part of Windows CE 6.0, an embedded Windows operating system. Most of the vendors signing on for licenses are manufacturers of embedded systems or device manufacturers that produce media formatted with exFAT. The entire (FAT) family, exFAT included, is used for embedded systems because it is lightweight and is better suited for solutions that have low memory and low power requirements, and can be easily implemented in firmware. Because file size references are stored in eight instead of four bytes, the has increased to 16 exabytes (EB) (264 − 1 bytes, or about 1019 bytes, which is otherwise limited by a maximum volume size of 128 PB, or 257 − 1 bytes), raised from 4 GB (232 − 1 bytes) in a standard FAT32 file system. Therefore, for the typical user, this enables seamless interoperability between Windows and macOS platforms for files in excess of 4 GB. Other specifications, features, and requirements of the exFAT file system include: Scalability to large disk sizes: about 128 PB (257 − 1 bytes) maximum, 512 TB (249 − 1 bytes) recommended maximum, raised from the 32-bit limit (2 TB for a sector size of 512 bytes) of standard FAT32 partitions. Support for up to 2,796,202 files per directory.