[SOLVED] Best format option for small SD card

[DukeComposed]

It's been quite awhile since I used FAT. I recently browsed some old backups and found files with the old 8.3 naming with tildas.

And avoiding FAT32 in this day and age isn't a bad thing, but it has its uses from time to time. FAT32 was intended to be backwards-compatible with FAT16, so that older versions of DOS and Windows could still make use of a FAT32 partition. The long file name (LFN) support was added as a chain of extra records outside of the old FAT file entry data type, so if your system knew to look for the LFN records it could stitch them together and read the full file name. If your system didn't know to check for LFN records it could still read the file allocation table and get the 8.3 "MYFILE~1.DOC" short file name.

[figueroa]

I use ext4 for flash drives that I don't keep mounted. The format meets my needs and is very stable and reliable. ext4 has some downsides that result in extra writes that may not be healthy for flash drives that stay in a computer and mounted. Also, by default, when formatting a drive with ext4 it doesn't finish the process, expecting the drive to remain available, so the process is finished in the background in your PC's 'spare time.' You can prevent that by using additional switches in the commandline, for example:

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mkfs.ext4 -v -L SP256 -U "df545a21-c381-4d4d-a6bb-abc775b91xyz" -E lazy_itable_init=0,lazy_journal_init=0 /dev/sdg1

The following switches are the ones to prevent those initializations in-its-spare-time writes:

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-E lazy_itable_init=0,lazy_journal_init=0

On the other hand, my wife's laptop keeps an ext4 formated, mounted flash drive 24/7 for many years on which to store overnight backups without any incident or errors in the logs. As usual, your mileage may vary.

Reference: https://www.hecticgeek.com/ext4-externa ... -idle-fix/

[relztrah]

The Format USB app does not recognize my SD card in /media/Dan/MICRO SD (/dev/mmcblk1p1). So I am going to (sigh) have to use the Terminal. Oh, well. I should probably become comfortable with Terminal commands sooner or later.

What is the command to format it as FAT32?

[j2mcgreg]

The Format USB app does not recognize my SD card in /media/Dan/MICRO SD (/dev/mmcblk1p1). So I am going to (sigh) have to use the Terminal. Oh, well. I should probably become comfortable with Terminal commands sooner or later.

What is the command to format it as FAT32?

Start your own topic and provide you QSI at the same time.

[rokytnji.1]

On my chrome book install . My 64 gig class 10 sd card is ext4 formatted since I use it as a /home partition during install..

Like others here. I use format usb app on usb drives between computers, easy peasy.