Solid-state memory media (flash drives) have become incredibly popular. They are worn in pockets along with mobile phones, on chains instead of key rings, on keychains. No doubt it's convenient - negligible weight, compact size, the versatility of the USB bus.
Having a USB flash drive at hand, you can at any time transfer any information to it from a computer or "throw" data from a similar medium onto a hard drive. However, solid-state technology is still too young and is going through almost the same stages that, at one time, were unique to hard drives.
This is now the volume of hard drives in the hundreds of gigabytes and no one doubts which file system to choose - FAT, FAT32, NTFS or a compromise exFAT. But with respect to storage devices based on solid-state memory, everything is completely different. For example, many users are interested in whether it is necessary to reformat a flash drive to NTFS. Information provided on various Internet pages and forums is often contradictory. Therefore, it is not always clear whether the flash drive should be converted to NTFS or not.
Most modern solid-state storage media are already sold pre-formatted. And, interestingly, NTFS is very rarely used. OthersIn other words, while converting a flash drive to NTFS can be done in a matter of minutes, it's worth considering at first why manufacturers are trying to avoid this file system. Let's make a reservation that we are talking about flash drives, not SSD drives.
Before we tell you how to convert a flash drive to NTFS, let's point out the main positive and negative aspects of this operation. Let's compare the "old" FAT32 and the newer NTFS.
One of the most important advantages of the latter is the highest reliability of data storage. According to the standard, during the operation of this file system, two allocation tables (journaling) are kept at once, which allows, to some extent, to duplicate the registration of completed operations. Owners of hard drives formatted in NTFS almost never run into a disk scan utility after an incorrect shutdown. Thus, it may seem that if you format the flash drive in NTFS, then the reliability will increase.
Unfortunately, in this case, this is not entirely true. Solid-state memory cells are characterized, among other things, by the number of allowed read/write transactions. Thus, the introduction of a duplicate mechanism increases the number of accesses to the device, thereby reducing its resource.
Consequently, do not rush to transfer the flash drive to NTFS. In addition, "extra" entries reduce the overall performance.
One of the undoubted advantages is the ability to record files larger than 4 GB. Only exFAT can boast of this.
After weighing all the pros and cons, you can start formatting. After connecting the flash drive, you need to open the "My Computer" shortcut, right-click on the drive letter of the flash drive and select the "Format" command from the menu list. Here you need to specify the desired system. If there is no NTFS in the list, then open the "Device Manager", go to "Disk devices", for the flash drive in the "Policy" tab, set the optimization for execution.
