FAT32 is one of the oldest file systems in the storage world today and is also still one of the most widely used. His debut came with Windows 95although for compatibility reasons its support has been maintained over the years and is still present in Windows 11.

The original version was FAT12and debuted with MS-DOS in 1980. This system used 12-bit inputs, while FAT32 uses 32-bit inputs. This is not the only important difference that exists between the two, and this is it FAT32 supports disk partitions up to 32 GBa capacity that in 1995 seemed more than sufficient in the short and long term, but today is more than obsolete.

Why was FAT32 limited to 32GB partitions

The answer will surprise you, but it is absolutely true. Dave Plummer, the software engineer at Microsoft responsible for FAT32, has openly admitted this It was a random decision.that is, this filesystem was limited to 32GB because it thought that going over that number would be excessive.

This decision was made in 1994, and as I said, this file system was implemented in Windows 95. Since then This restriction has been maintained with the passage of time. No version of Windows has made the necessary changes to go beyond that 32GB, something that is finally set to change.

FAT32 will have a 2 TB limit in Windows 11

This means that we can format the drives under the specified file system using maximum capacity 2TBwhich is a number much better adapted to the current reality, although it should be continuously updated, since it is very likely that in a few years the non-attainment will end.

Don’t look at me weird, think back in 1995 even that 32GB of storage was it seemed like a pass to us (at that time it was a luxury to have a hard drive larger than 1 GB) and that number ended up being low in a few years. The same will be the case with the 2 TB, although in this case I think it will take longer before it is small for us, at least for a home user.

The update that removes this 32GB limit and increases the maximum to 2TB has already been introduced in the Windows 11 Canary channel and is marked with build number 27686. As you can see in the attached image the system is already working using the appropriate commands in the command line, but it’s at a very early stage, so it will take several months to reach the general channel.

This is the output volume format as FAT32 in 27686 pic.twitter.com/LcOsEZqMf3

— Xeno (@XenoPanther) August 15, 2024

AI generated cover image.