If you do need those larger file sizes, youll need to stick with something like NTFS or exFAT.

Every major operating system and most devices support it, making it great for drives you need to access from different systems.

The truth is that FAT32 has a theoretical volume size limit of 16 TB, with a current practical limit of about 8 TBplenty for most USB drives.

One method uses PowerShell (or the Command Prompt), the other a free, third-party tool.

Select the Quick Format option, and then click the Start button.

This tool took a few seconds to format our 64GB USB drive that took us over an hour in PowerShell.

If you dont, the tool will interpret the drive as being used by another app and formatting will fail.

If this happens to you, just close the File Explorer windows and try again.

Formatting our 64GB USB drive took almost over an hour, and weve heard some people complain that it can take many hours for bigger drives.

Aside from the length of time, you also wont know if formatting failedunlikely but possibleuntil the process is done.

Open PowerShell with administrative privileges by hitting WindowsX on your keyboard, and then selecting PowerShell (Admin) from the Power User menu.

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Windows 10 Format Fat16