# XFS Filesystem with Terastation , Whats the max file size?



## mtb211

HI, I have a Buffalo Terastation, 1 TB. I realized I can not back up some of my files on a Fat 32 drive because there is a 2 GB max file size(thumb drives), does anyone know what XFS's max file size is? I read on wikipedia that its max file size is 8 exabytes, lol I have no idea what an exabyte is.

Thx

Matt

if I google an exabyte it displays "1 EB = 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 B = 1018 bytes = 1 billion gigabytes = 1 million terabytes"


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## Geoff

XFS can not be read natively by Windows, it's a file system used by Linux.  What OS did you want to install this on?


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## mtb211

Its currently a NAS at my company. We use XP/Windows 7 and Ubuntu here. We need to upload some pretty large files 4-5 gigs to the terastation, I just want to make sure there is not going some sort of 4gigabyte limit or something (like in FAT 32)

Thx for the response, didnt honestly think anyone would respond so again thanks!


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## tlarkin

If you are sharing them over the network, it doesn't matter what file system the NAS is because it will use SAMBA to transfer the files over the network.  I personally use ext3 on my Linux boxes.  Then make sure your windows clients are NTFS and you should have zero file size issues.

Where does FAT32 come into play here?  I am not quite grasping that.


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## mtb211

Hey, my thumb drives are fat 32 so I cant use them to put large PST files on there


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## tlarkin

mtb211 said:


> Hey, my thumb drives are fat 32 so I cant use them to put large PST files on there



You have pst files over 4gigs in size?


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## Geoff

mtb211 said:


> Hey, my thumb drives are fat 32 so I cant use them to put large PST files on there


All external hard drives and large thumb drives should be using NTFS, but at tlarkin said, if it's a NAS then it generally doesn't matter, although I don't see why you don't want to use NTFS..


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## tlarkin

[-0MEGA-];1454559 said:
			
		

> All external hard drives and large thumb drives should be using NTFS, but at tlarkin said, if it's a NAS then it generally doesn't matter, although I don't see why you don't want to use NTFS..



FAT32 can native-ly mount, read and write on any OS out there.  NTFS cannot.  That is the only reason, but if it is over the network it isn't being mounted at all, it is being transferred over the application layer (OSI layer) via samba.  Well, technically it is being mounted, but not by the file systems, by the networking file transfer protocols.


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## mtb211

thx I didnt know that, appreciate the info


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## tlarkin

mtb211 said:


> thx I didnt know that, appreciate the info



No worries, that will be $50 for my standard invoice  




just kidding


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## Geoff

tlarkin said:


> FAT32 can native-ly mount, read and write on any OS out there.  NTFS cannot.  That is the only reason, but if it is over the network it isn't being mounted at all, it is being transferred over the application layer (OSI layer) via samba.  Well, technically it is being mounted, but not by the file systems, by the networking file transfer protocols.


I can understand that, but people should reformat them to NTFS if they are using it on Windows.


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