What is the essential difference between FAT32 and FAT 16 of memory cards? Tell me in detail

Before the introduction of FAT32 file system, the file system commonly used by PC was FAT 16. For example, based on MS-DOS, Win

95 and other systems have adopted the FAT 16 file system. In winter

Under 9X, the maximum partition supported by FAT 16 is 2GB. We know that computers store information in an area called "cluster" on the hard disk. The smaller the cluster used, the higher the efficiency of saving information. In the case of FAT 16, the larger the partition, the larger the cluster and the lower the storage efficiency, which will inevitably lead to the waste of storage space. And with the continuous improvement of computer hardware and application, the FAT 16 file system can no longer meet the requirements of the system. In this case, the enhanced file system FAT32 is introduced. Compared with FAT 16, FAT32 has the following characteristics:

1.

Compared with FAT 16, the biggest advantage of FAT32 is that it can support a disk size of 2TB(2047GB), but it does not support partitions smaller than 5 12MB. Win based on FAT32

2000 can support partitions up to 32GB; ; And based on

Win of FAT 16

The maximum partition supported by 2000 is 4GB.

2.

For smaller clusters, FAT32 file system can save information more effectively. For example, the size of two partitions is 2GB, one partition uses the FAT 16 file system, and the other partition uses the FAT32 file system. The cluster size of the partition using FAT 16 is 32KB, while the cluster size of FAT32 partition is only 4KB. In this way, the storage efficiency of FAT32 is much higher than that of FAT 16, which can generally be increased by 15%.

3.

The FAT32 file system can relocate the root directory and use the backup copy of FAT. In addition, the startup record of FAT32 partition is contained in a structure containing key data, which reduces the possibility of computer system crash.