| Feature | ext4 | Btrfs | NTFS | exFAT | FAT32 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Max File Size |
16 TiB |
16 EiB |
256 TiB |
16 EiB |
4 GiB |
FAT32’s 4GB limit is a major drawback |
|||||
Max Volume Size |
1 EiB |
16 EiB |
256 TiB |
128 PiB |
2 TiB |
Typically formatted as ≤32GB |
|||||
Journaling |
✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
✗ |
✗ |
No journal, data corruption risk |
No journal, data corruption risk |
||||
Transparent Compression |
✗ |
✓ |
✗ |
✗ |
✗ |
Supports zstd, lzo, zlib |
|||||
Copy-on-Write/Snapshots |
✗ |
✓ |
✗ |
✗ |
✗ |
Btrfs exclusive feature |
|||||
Windows Native |
✗ |
✗ |
✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
3rd-party driver needed |
Default system format |
Built-in (Win 7+) |
Built-in |
||
macOS Native |
✗ |
✗ |
~ |
✓ |
✓ |
3rd-party driver needed |
Read-only by default |
Built-in (10.6.5+) |
Built-in |
||
Linux Native |
✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
Default format |
In-kernel driver |
ntfs3 or NTFS-3G |
Built-in (Kernel 5.4+) |
Built-in |
|
Generic Device Support |
✗ |
✗ |
✗ |
~ |
✓ |
Common on newer models |
Near-universal support |
File-System Formats Comparison
Published 17:05 May 07, 2020.
Created by @ezra. Categorized in #Undefined, and tagged as #Ubuntu Linux.
Source format: Asciidoc
Doc URL: https://hotodogo.com/doc/file-system-formats-comparison/
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