FAT12/16/32

File Allocation Table

EDIT

File Allocation Table is a Microsoft File System Format, and is used to store information about the files stored on a Volume. This includes Attributes, File Size, etc.

	FAT12	FAT16	FAT32
Developer	Microsoft
Full Name	File Allocation Table
	(12-bit version)	(16-bit version)	(32-bit version)
Introduced	August 1980 (QDOS)	July 1988 (MS-DOS 4.0)	August 1996 (Windows 95 OSR2)
Partition identifier	0x01 (MBR)	0x04, 0x06, 0x0E (MBR)	0x0B, 0x0C (MBR) EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433 -87C0-68B6B72699C7 (GPT)
Structures	FAT12	FAT16	FAT32
Directory contents	Table
File allocation	Linked List
Bad blocks	Linked List
Limits	FAT12	FAT16	FAT32
Max file size	32 MiB	4 GiB	4 GiB
Max number of files	4077	65517	268435437
Max filename size	8.3 or 255 characters when using LFNs
Max volume size	32 MiB	4 GiB	2 TiB
Features	FAT12	FAT16	FAT32
Dates recorded	Creation, modified, access
Date range	January 1, 1980 - December 31, 2108
Forks	Only under OS/2		No
Attributes	Read-only, hidden, system, archive, volume name
File system permissions	No
Transparent compression	Per-volume, Stacker, DoubleSpace, DriveSpace		No
Transparent encryption	Per-volume only with DR-DOS		No

Contents

• 1Varieties
  • 1.1FAT12
  • 1.2VFAT
  • 1.3FAT32

Varieties

FAT12

FAT12 is a old FAT Specification that only allows partitions up to 16 MiB. It's normally used now on Floppy Drives, and 16

FAT16 was designed for Hard Drives that were larger than 16 MiB. It uses a 16-Bit Cluster addressing system that allows for Hard Drives sizes up to 4 GiB.

It was used by later MS-DOS versions (Earlier ones using FAT12), as well as Early Windows Versions.

FAT16 has a maximum File Size of 4 GiB, and a Maximum Volume Size of 4 GiB (On MS-DOS, and Windows 9x, they only support up to 32KB Clusters, making the maximum Volume Size they can support 2 GiB). Maximum number of files on a FAT16 Volume is 65536, with the maximum viewable number of files and folders in the Root is 512.

VFAT

VFAT stands for Virtual File Allocation Table, as is the name given to the Software Driver present in Windows 95 and later, that acts as an interface between software applications, and the FAT File System.

FAT32

FAT32 was created to supersede FAT16, and was Introduced by Windows 95 OSR2. It uses a 32-Bit Addressing System for Disk Clusters.

Maximum file size on a FAT32 Volume is 4 GiB (A Problem now being encountered for those with DVD Images, as FAT32 cannot handle them is above 4 GiB), but the Maximum Volume Size is under debate.

Windows XP will only format FAT32 Volumes up to 32 GiB, however, other utilities will theoretically format FAT32 Volumes up to 8 Terabytes in size. However, if a FAT32 Primary Partition is greater than 8 GiB, then there is no guarantee that it can be booted.

Maximum number of files on a FAT32 Volume is 4,177,920, with the maximum number of Files and Folders standing at 65,534 per folder.

Filesystem List

Filesystems: FAT | FATX | FAT12 | FAT16 | FATX16 | FAT32 | FATX32 | NTFS | JFS | Ext | Ext2 | Ext3 |  HPFS | ReiserFS | Reiser4 | HFS+ | FFS | UFS1 | UFS2 | UFSMacOSX | XFS | OFS | BFS | BeFS |  OpenBFS | NSS | NWFS | ODS5 | VxFS | ZFS | MFS | IFS | AFS | TVFS | MinixFS | SkyFS | AtheOSFS |  ArlaFS | CDFS | UDF | CFS | DFS | OpenAFS | GFS | DTFS | CODA | UMSDOS | OldBeFS | RFS | EFS