We transfer large files from the PC to a flash drive. How to write large files to a flash drive
The problem of copying large files to regular flash drives and removable memory cards occupies the minds of many ordinary users. And very often they blame removable drives, although the problem here is completely different. Next, it is proposed to figure out how to transfer a large file to a flash drive and how possible this is. But first, let's look at the problem itself and find out what causes such situations.
Why can't I transfer a large file to a flash drive?
Apparently, there is little point in talking about which files in most cases are so large that it is simply impossible to transfer them to a regular flash drive. As a rule, most often the copying problem arises with files of modern video formats, which, depending on the quality of the material, can be quite impressive in size. Just remember the volumes of data that are stored on the same Blu-ray discs. And regular DVD movies, with high quality and duration, can take up no less space. The same can be said about some installation distributions, which may contain specialized databases in the form of a single or several large files. Very often this applies to libraries of virtual synthesizers, which are widely used today in music computer sequencers and studios.
For example, the instrument file of the popular Omnisphere 2 synthesizer takes up more than 50 GB. And transferring such an object to removable media can be not only time-consuming, but also impossible (and not at all due to the limited capacity of the flash drive itself). The main problem is that all flash drives use the FAT32 file system by default, which has its own limitations due to the fact that it cannot work with file sizes larger than 4 GB. The actual size of the file is, of course, determined, but it is impossible to move or copy such objects in it.
Using NTFS formatting
How to transfer a large file to a flash drive if it has the above structure? Apparently, many have already realized that it needs to be transformed. To perform such actions, the easiest way is to use the most common formatting of the drive, selecting NTFS as the final file system.
In this case, it is absolutely not necessary to use full formatting, but you can limit yourself to quick or so-called cleaning of the table of contents. On any Windows system, you can access this tool directly through the RMB context menu on the selected media.
Note: Similar to the standard process, formatting can be done from the command line or using its tools to copy the file to an external device. Due to the fact that such procedures look somewhat more complicated for ordinary users, they will not be considered. The end effect is still the same.
Additional formatting utilities
Speaking about how to transfer a large file to a flash drive, it is worth mentioning some third-party programs that allow you to quickly and without any problems format any type and any media.
Most of these programs have both an interface and features that are very similar to Windows tools. But some of them (in particular, HDD Low Level Format Tool) are advisable to use when problems are observed with flash drives or memory cards due to format changes, failure of controllers or other non-physical damage.
How to write a large file to a flash drive without formatting?
But let's assume that the user has a removable drive with information recorded on it, to which a file larger than 4 GB needs to be transferred. How to copy a large file to a flash drive in such a situation, because you don’t want to format it and destroy already recorded files? In this case, you can use the FAT32 to NTFS conversion tool, which only involves converting one file system to another without the need to format the drive. To the chagrin of many inexperienced users, this only works in the command console (cmd).
The conversion itself is performed by executing the command convert N: /fs:ntfs /nosecurity /x, where N is the letter of the removable drive displayed in Explorer.
Note: If the removable disk has a volume label, you will have to enter that label to complete the operation. But the easiest way is to first remove it through the properties section in Explorer, and only then start the conversion.
Splitting the original object into parts
Finally, let's see how to transfer a large file to a FAT32 flash drive without any formatting or converting the file system to another standard. Since you can’t go higher than 4 GB, the file needs to be split into parts that are smaller than this size, and then copied to the media. But what should you use to perform such actions? The most common programs for working with archives (WinZIP, 7-Zip, WinRAR, etc.) are best suited.
In any such application, you simply need to add the file you are looking for and specify the sizes of the parts that will be created during compression. To simplify your work, from a special list with preset parameters, you can select exactly the size that corresponds to the maximum in the FAT32 structure. It goes without saying that if you copy a movie in this way, it will be impossible to play it on either home devices or software players without extracting the contents of the archive.
Note: you can also simply split the source file into parts without compression in the Total Commander file manager.
Brief summary
Here is a brief summary of all the main solutions related to the problem of how to transfer a large file to a flash drive. To summarize in terms of choosing the best copying method, I think the best option would be either formatting or converting the file structure to NTFS. The use of archive programs is only advisable if the compression concerns not multimedia formats that need to be played from a removable device, but ordinary files and folders that need to be, for example, transferred to another computer.
The first hard drives had a capacity of several megabytes. Modern portable USB flash drives hold tens and hundreds of gigabytes.
Naturally, the “average” file sizes are also increasing - now no one will be surprised by the installation of a program or game for several GB, or a “heavy” movie in Blu-Ray format.
However, if you try to write a file larger than 4 GB to, say, a 16 GB flash drive, you may receive a "No free disk space" message, even if there is free space. This problem is explained by the formatting of the USB drive, or more precisely, its file system.
File systems - a little theory
A file system is a “set of rules” by which data is distributed on disk.
It regulates what the size of the cluster (“cell”) will be, what attributes the file can have, and what its maximum size is. There are file systems optimized for working with various storage media and used in different operating systems. There is no ideal file system, so in everyday life you can encounter at least three or four of them:
FAT16, FAT32, exFAT, NTFS
The first two, as the name suggests, belong to the same family. At one time they were optimized for working with flash memory. Their advantage is that they allow the computer to access memory cells more efficiently, which extends the life of the flash drive.
Features of file systems
FAT16 - today is almost out of use, but in
FAT32 - all flash media are formatted by default. However, this file system has a maximum file size limit of 4 GB!!! So if you have a flash drive with a size of 8/16/32/64/... GB, there is enough free space on it, but a 4-5 GB file refuses to be written - the media needs to be reformatted to exFAT or NTFS and the problem with writing large files to a flash drive will be solved !
The choice between these two systems is not so simple.
exFAT is a logical development of FAT32. She also takes good care of flash memory and wears it out a little. However, non-Microsoft operating systems cannot work with this file system (except for some UNIX OS), so you should format a flash drive into it with caution.
NTFS is a popular file system, however, designed for hard drives, not flash drives. She accesses the storage medium more often, and this leads to its accelerated wear. NTFS also has compatibility issues with UNIX and Apple operating systems, but most popular builds provide support for at least read mode.
Both exFAT and NTFS have file size limits measured in terabytes. This will definitely be enough for the next couple of years.
Formatting a flash drive
The easiest way to format a flash drive in these file systems is through the context menu of the flash drive itself.
Right click on its icon -> Format -> drop-down list "File system"
First, all the necessary data from the flash drive must be copied to another medium, as it will be destroyed. There are programs that theoretically allow you to convert file systems of flash drives without destroying data, but their reliability is not one hundred percent.
There is still enough free space on the flash drive, but for some reason the file is not being written. If this is a large file (more than 4GB), a movie, for example, or a DVD image or archive, then on this page you will find the answer to how to write the file to a USB flash drive.
Why isn't it recording?
If everything is fine with the flash drive, i.e. if it is physically intact and there are no problems with the file system, then most likely it is because your flash drive is formatted in FAT32. This file system was developed quite a long time ago and does not support the ability to work with files larger than 4GB (minus 1 byte).
What to do?
There are two options to choose from:
- Split a long file into several pieces less than 4GB.
- Use another, more modern file on the flash drive new system.
Let's look at these options in more detail.
1. Split a long file into several pieces
Probably the easiest way. It is suitable even if you are using a computer with MS Windows XP or GNU\Linux. All you need is an archiver program that can make multi-volume archives. WinRAR, 7-Zip, WinZip and others are suitable. Using 7-Zip for MS Windows as an example, it looks like this: launch 7-Zip File Manager:
Select the required file and click the “Add” button. In the “Add to archive” window that opens:
- Select the folder where the final files should be located. You can immediately select a flash drive or a folder on a flash drive. If you don't select anything, then chunks of the file will be in the same folder as the original file.
- Specify the size for file chunks. A size slightly less than 4GB will suit us. You can specify 4000M.
- Select the compression level. Here, the higher the compression level, the longer the archiver will work to create the “slice”. Plus, you need to remember that often movies are already a compressed file and trying to apply a high compression ratio to it does not make sense. For films and archives, we recommend choosing either the “High-speed” mode or “No compression”.
Next, click “OK” and wait for 7-Zip to complete. You will get several files with the same name, only the extension will be different: .001, .002, .003, etc. If the file was cut somewhere on the hard drive, then you can now transfer the resulting pieces of the original file to a flash drive. The main thing is not to forget that to recreate the original file from pieces you will again need an archiver.
2. Another file system on the flash drive
An alternative to the legacy FAT32 file system is either exFAT, or NTFS.
exFAT file system was developed by Microsoft specifically for use on flash drives and does not have many of the disadvantages of FAT32, including the 4GB file size limitation. But, unfortunately, not all devices and operating systems can work with flash drives formatted in exFAT. Windows understands exFAT since XP service pack 2+ KB955704, MS Windows Vista - with service pack 1. Mac OS X - starting from version 10.6.5. Linux requires additional installation of a special package, and not everything is clear with the license. Android devices usually do not understand exFAT out of the box. For TVs and other devices, it is better to check the documentation.
You can format a flash drive in exFAT using standard MS Windows tools:
Of course, if you have the necessary files on your flash drive, you need to temporarily copy them to your hard drive before formatting, because After formatting, the flash drive will be empty.
However, NTFS- as a more common file system, it is supported by a large number of operating systems and devices out of the box, but with intensive use on flash drives, this file system can lead to premature failure of the flash drive due to the increased number of read-write service operations.
NTFS on a flash drive can be obtained by converting from FAT32. This is done simply: click the “Start” button, select “Run” or instead, press Win+R on the keyboard at the same time and type:
convert e: /fs:ntfs /NoSecurity /x
where e: is your flash drive. We are waiting for completion. Before starting the conversion, it is recommended to make a backup copy of the files from the flash drive, but as a rule, the conversion takes place without data loss.
It doesn’t matter which file system you chose: exFAT or NTFS, now you can easily write files larger than 4GB to a flash drive.
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Greetings, dear users! In my previous articles, I have already written articles on the topic of USB storage media, namely, what needs to be done if, or another example, and important data for us remains on it, what to do in such a situation in order to recover data from a flash drive .
If you really don’t know what to do in such situations, then I recommend that you read these articles. Since I started today’s article by talking about flash media, today we will learn another useful point directly related to the flash drives themselves.
Imagine that you decided to write an image of some program or toy onto your flash drive (by the way, I already wrote an article about what an image is, you can read more). Let's imagine that the volume of your flash drive is 16 GB, and your flash drive is completely empty and formatted. In turn, the volume of the recorded image is about 6 GB. At the moment when you try to write an image to a USB drive, a notification of the following nature appears: “Not enough disk space”. Agree that the appearance of a notification of this kind puts you in a kind of dead end situation, because the flash drive itself is completely empty and has 16 GB of free space.
And if we simply copy a file whose size is less than 4 GB to a USB drive, then in this case the file itself is successfully placed on the flash drive and no errors associated with a lack of free space arise. The question arises, ?
At one time, I also had to deal with a similar phenomenon when a file with a volume of 5.7 GB was not written to a removable disk, while another file whose volume was approximately 4.3 GB was written to a flash drive without any problems. So what exactly is the problem then, you ask?
In this article, we will try to understand why files larger than 4-5 GB may not be written to your flash drive. Do you know why such large files are not written to flash media? In general, more and more often, many users who encounter this problem are asking questions: how to write a file larger than 4 GB to a flash drive. Regarding the current issue, I can tell you that I have heard different answers, or rather arguments, reasoning from users who have not encountered a similar phenomenon before.
For example, on one of the forums, a user suggested the following answer options: files are not written to the flash drive because there is a virus there, which takes up the entire free disk space of the flash drive, or the flash drive is damaged or burned out.
I will tell you that in such a situation, when large files (more than 4-5 GB) are not written to the flash drive, this does not mean at all that it is damaged, or that there is some kind of virus or malware on it. And the reason for this is the fact that the flash drive has a FAT32 file system.
By the way, I recommend that you also read my article:
From here you should remember once and for all that this file system is not capable of supporting large volumes of files (more than 4-5 GB) for work.
Therefore, if you want files larger than 4 GB to be successfully copied to a USB drive and then used by you for a specific purpose, then in this case you first of all need a flash drive with the NTFS file system. In general, they say that the NTFS file system has the ability to contact such files, the volume of which can reach up to 16TB. From all of the above it follows that in order to To write a file larger than 4 GB to a flash drive, you will need a flash drive with the NTFS file system. There is no need to specifically run to the first computer store you come across to purchase such a flash drive.
I suggest you move on to the practical part of this article to clearly see how to independently convert the file system of your flash drive. So, I hope it is now clear to you that we will need to perform a number of necessary steps to create a flash drive with the NTFS file system.
In this article we will look at several options that will allow you to convert the file system. Therefore, if you have difficulties copying large files, then this article will help you solve your problem.
First option:
So, after you have connected the flash drive to your computer, and the latter has successfully identified and recognized the USB drive, you will now need to go to the properties of the removable device.
To do this, open “My Computer” and right-click on the removable device.
From the context menu that appears, select Format. As a result, a special window will open in which you will need to click on the drop-down menu in the “File system” line and select NTFS.
Please note that if there are documents on your removable media, you will need to copy them to your computer.
Then all you have to do is click on the “Start” button. After a short time, the removable media will be formatted, after which the removable media will have the NTFS file system. However, one caveat should be noted here. If your computer is still using the Windows XP operating system, then in this case you will not be able to immediately format the flash drive in the NTFS file system.
In such a situation, you will need to open the “Device Manager” and select the value of removable storage, and then, as shown in the figure below, you just have to go to the “Policy” tab to activate the corresponding option.
Finally, you should open the properties of the flash drive again and format it.
After the flash drive is formatted, do not forget to set the parameter value in the “Policy” tab to its original value.
Second Option:
The second option involves changing the file system of a removable device using the “Convert” operation.
To begin, you will need to launch the command line by clicking on the “Start” button and typing “cmd” in the search bar and then pressing “Enter.”
Now in the window that opens, you should specify a special command, which will convert the file system of your flash drive. The command looks like this:
Then just press “Enter”. However, you should know that before converting a removable device, you will need to copy all the data to the hard drive, because you risk losing it.
I also draw your attention to the fact that you need to carefully enter the command and indicate the correct letter of your removable device. Otherwise, the conversion operation will not be completed and an error will appear indicating that the flash drive label is invalid.
At the end of this article, I would like to add that in addition to the above methods, they also resort to using various programs that also do a good job of changing the file system of a removable drive. However, if there are options for changing the file system that do not require installing software, then it is best to use these simple options, thereby not burdening your computer with the installation of unnecessary software.
For today, that’s all I wanted to tell you about today in terms of transferring data via removable devices. Have you ever seen errors of this kind when copying a large file and wondered how to write a file larger than 4 GB to a flash drive? I hope today's article was useful to you. See you all in the next article, dear readers!
P.S Finally, I suggest watching a video clip of a meteorite falling on Chelyabinsk!
Hello dear visitors. Yesterday they asked me a question: what should I do? I can’t transfer a large file to a flash drive? The system says that there is not enough disk space, but there is enough space on the flash drive. It was necessary to copy a movie of about 9 GB in size to a 16 GB flash drive. If you think logically, then everything should fit, but the system refused to put such a large file on a flash drive and that’s it.
I knew what was going on, and while I was explaining what needed to be done, a bright thought appeared in my head that I should write about this on a blog, so I’m actually writing it :). Let's first explain why large files, or to be precise, files larger than 4 GB do not want to be written to the flash drive and a message appears that there is not enough disk space.
The fact is that when you buy a flash drive, it is already formatted in the file system FAT32, and the file system is FAT32 does not support files larger than 4 GB. Here's the thing, it's very simple. We need to change the file system of the flash drive from FAT32 to NTFS. Because the NTFS file system supports, if I'm not mistaken, files up to 16 GB.
This question is becoming more and more relevant every day, because the size of memory on flash drives is growing and they are becoming cheaper every day. You can already buy a 16 GB flash drive for the same money that a year ago you could only buy a 4 GB one.
We just need to change the file system of our flash drive from FAT32 to NTFS. I will now write two ways in which this can be done.
Format the flash drive to the NTFS file system
I have already written about how. But I think it wouldn’t hurt to repeat it again and pay special attention to the fact that we are formatting it into an NTFS system.
Attention! Formatting a flash drive will destroy all information on it. Make sure that your flash drive does not contain the files you need. If there are, then copy them to your computer.
We connect the flash drive to the computer, wait until the computer recognizes it, go to "My computer" and right-click on our flash drive, select "Format".
A window will open in which we need to select the NTFS file system, select and click “Start”. We agree to the system warning.
After the formatting process is completed, you will receive a blank flash drive with the NTFS file system, onto which you can copy large files.
Converting a flash drive to NTFS for writing large files
The second method is to simply convert the flash drive to NTFS, this method essentially differs from the first, only in that the files you have on the flash drive will not be lost. But I still advise you not to risk it and copy the necessary files to your computer.
Our flash drive is connected and recognized by the computer. We go to “Start”, "All programs", “Standard” and select “Run”. Or just press Win+R. A window will open in which we write the command cmd and click “Ok”.
A window will open in which we need to enter a command to convert the flash drive to NTFS:
convert k : /fs:ntfs /nosecurity /x
Where k is the letter that the computer assigned to your flash drive, go to "My computer" and see what letter you have. Enter this command and press “Enter”.
Once completed, a report will appear:
How to transfer a large file to a flash drive? Converting a flash drive to the NTFS file system. updated: December 27, 2012 by: admin
