How to copy files larger than 3 GB to your Flash Drive

Do you remember when the first USB Pen Drives or Flash Disks surfaced? The purpose of creating them was to replace the dying Floppy Disk. I remember my first USB Flash Drive to be 128 MB, so that’s approximately 85 floppy disks; believe me, it was something back then. Today, Flash Drives replace CDs, DVDs and even small hard disks.

The current Flash Drive generation goes from 2 GB up to 256+ GB (it’s hard to find less than 2 GB these days). This guide will help if you have a USB Flash Drive larger than 4 GB

Let’s say you went to the nearest PC shop, bought a 16 GB Flash Drive, you were very excited, opened up Steam to back up your favorite game and put it on the Flash Drive.

Oh no, something is not right! You have a 16 GB USB Drive and are trying to copy a 4 GB file but failing with the error message “no space available in the destination folder”. You go berserk, and you start wondering: “Do I have a fake USB Flash Drive?” Don’t jump to conclusions so fast. There is an explanation to what is happening here.
You see, the majority of Flash Drives come with a FAT32 File System; this means that the destination drive won’t accept a file larger than 3 GB in size, even if you have a 16, 32 or even 64 GB Drive.

To solve your issue, all you have to do is to format your drive to the NTFS File System, that way the drive will hold larger files and transferring data will be much faster. This precedure is the same on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Let’s find out the difference between NTFS and Fat File System

Figure 1

Now, before following these steps, please backup any files located on your flash drive that you want to keep before you format it.

All files and folders on the flash drive will be deleted in this process.

First, plug in your flash drive. When it appears in Computer right click on it and choose Format.

Figure 2

Now, if you are getting the warning mentioned above “no space available in the destination folder” you should see Fat32 (Default) under File System, as below.

Figure 3

Click on Fat32 (Default) and choose NTFS from the list and leave the allocation size as it is.

Figure 4

After that, you can choose the Volume label; this is the name of your USB Flash Drive and can be set to whatever you want. Keep Quick Format ticked and then click on Start.

A warning will appear; press OK to confirm that you wish to start the format.

Figure 5
So what have we done here?

Easy, you’ve converted your Flash Drive’s File System to NTFS. It will now accept large files and you may notice that file transfers are faster now.

Please note:

The capacity size is very different from the Allocation size. The first is the real size of the USB Flash Drive; in the above pictures, the capacity is 14.7 GB, whereas the commercial size of the USB is 16 GB. This will only show 14.7 because the hardware manufacturers calculate the size based on the SI definition that 1 GB = 1000 MB but Windows will calculate it on the binary definition that 1 GB = 1024 MB.
The Allocation Unit, also called sector, is the smallest logical amount of disk space that can be allocated to hold a file. In Fat32 each sector is not large enough to hold a file size larger than 3 GB, and when converted to NTFS, the operation will be faster because the sectors are bigger.
Changing the allocation Unit needs a format, but remember that the lower the allocation unit size, the less space that is wasted, so take care of the allocation size you are giving to your drive. If you are putting small files on your drive, keep the allocation size small to avoid losing lots of free space. Copying small files to a large Allocation Unit drive will waste free space.
exFAT is a File System found on Flash Drives, that can be used when the NTFS option is not available; exFAT can handle a very large allocation unit, but be aware that exFAT is not widely supported outside Windows or Mac, so if you are using your flash drive with your car’s Radio or on your DVDplayer exFAT won’t usually be supported on these systems.
Pressing Restore Device Defaults will restore the Flash Drive to its factory settings, usually FAT32 and the default allocation size. Don’t be alarmed if you’ve pressed this button; it won’t work until you format the Drive. Pressing close will simply cancel the command.
Formatting the drive with quick format checked will only cause the space occupied by files to be available, but the files still physically exist and can be restored with some Data restoration tools. Unchecking quick format will erase all data and will check for any bad sectors on the drive; that’s why the regular format will take much longer to complete.