Good news for users who need to format FAT32 partitions hard diskof the Microsoft recently announced that it will remove the 32GB limit for FAT32 partitions in Windows 11, raising this limit to 2 TB in the latest versions of the operating system Windows 11.
As a brief history of the operating system Windows, I tell you that this change comes after almost 30 years in which users Windows they were restricted by an arbitrary 32GB limit originally introduced during development Windows 95. This limitation was originally imposed by a former developer Windows, Dave Plummer, who admitted that this decision was an arbitrary one, based on the technical constraints of the time, particularly related to "cluster slack" (the inefficiency caused by the size of clusters on large volumes).
Even with this limitation, the operating system Windows it could read FAT32 partitions up to 2 TB, but creating such a partition directly in the operating system was not possible without using external software (third-party applications).
Related: How to format a USB drive larger than 32GB to FAT32 on Windows 10
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Why is it important to remove the 32 GB limit for FAT32 partitions in Windows 11
Removing the 32 GB limit for FAT32 partitions in Windows 11 it is a great advantage for users who still depend on FAT32, especially for older devices that require this file system.
Although Microsoft has removed this limitation, FAT32 partitions will be little used because the 4GB limit on the maximum size of individual files is still maintained. Certainly, this aspect makes FAT32 less attractive compared to other file systems, such as exFAT, which do not have these restrictions.
What is FAT32 and why was the 32GB limit imposed?
FAT32 (File Allocation Table 32) is a file system developed by Microsoft in 1996 that was popular due to its broad compatibility with a wide range of devices and operating systems, including Linux. Although FAT32 can handle volumes up to 8 TB, in general practice and especially on Windows, there was an artificial limitation that did not allow creating partitions larger than 32 GB without the use of third-party tools. This limit was not imposed by the technical capability of FAT32, but by a decision made during development.
It's important to note that currently you can't make a FAT32 partition larger than 32GB from the interface Windows 11 (UI), but only from via command lines executed in Command Prompt.