I have a 32 GB thumb drive and tried to copy and paste a 4.13 GB movie and got an error message: The file "Lulu - 1080p is too large for the destination file system.
What am I doing wrong? Is there another way to move the file besides copy & paste?
Format the drive as exfat, fat 32 doesn’t support large files past 4GB and is only used for backwards compatibility as it is decades old.
#SanDiskUserRewards
Four questions: 1. If the package says "32 GB, is SanDisk lying? Why would they say 32 GB if it only holds 4 GB of data?
2. If I format the drive as exfat will it hold a 4.13 GB movie? And how do I format the drive in exfat?
3. If it’s decades old, how do I get a current flash drive that ISN’T decades old?
4. What size flash drive do I need to hold a 4-5 GB movie?
Edit: Never mind. I Googled how to format the drive as exfat, did that and now the movie is downloading.
Why don’t they come as exfat anyway?
New SanDisk drives 32GB and larger are factory formatted as exFAT and thus hold files larger than 4GB. If your’s isn’t it is used or ancient.
Windows supports formatting drives as exFAT.
All major stores sell current flash drives. Amazon too I believe.
All drives bigger than 8 drives will hold your movie.
1 Like
I just got this flash drive at Wal Mart last week. If it’s ancient, I guess Wal Mart doesn’t sell many and it has been on their display for a long time.
Oh, the drive isn’t ancient, the file system is, and is simply used for compatibility, so both windows and mac users can see the drive. Its to avoid support calls, a drive can be formated on any system to work but who wants to explain that to people who just want to plug it in and see that it works otherwise they’d freak out.
#SanDiskUserRewards
That is because the USB flash drive is formatted as FAT32, which cannot store individual files larger than 4GB. If you reformat the USB flash drive to another format like NTFS or exFAT, you will not encounter such errors, because those 2 formats do not have any restriction for individual file size.
Related: How to Choose the Best Format for Both macOS and Windows
“Why don’t they come as exfat anyway? “
FAT32 is plug-and-play on Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms. It is widely used in devices that need broad compatibility, such as USB flash drives, SD cards, digital cameras, smart TVs, dash cams, and gaming consoles, etc.
