Consequences of formatting a 16 gb sandisk cruzer flashdrive from fat32 to ntfs?
 

I can’t transfer a 5.23 gb file onto my flashdrive (16 gb sandisk cruzer) because it is formatted to fat32 (it came that way). I heard that if you format it to ntfs, you can transfer files that large.

What are the different consequences of formatting to ntfs? I heard that it will last for a short amount of time- how short will the life expectancy of the flash drive be if I format it to ntfs? Assuming that I backup a bunch of files at least once a week. I also heard that you have to always safely eject the drive or else it will be corrupted- is this even if no files are being transferred? Does formatting delete everything on the flashdrive (and does this cause any problems)? Anything else? Overall, is it a good or bad idea?

Thanks.

NTFS can't be read by portable devices (tablets, phones, etc) due to most of them not understanding NTFS. Also, if the device isn't unmounted safely, other computers may bitch and force you to go back to the original computer to remount and then unmount it safely.

I don't see why it'd decrease the lifespan of the device, other than the extra writing from journaling.

Formatting will erase everything from the drive, thats the idea behind it.

Not safely removing will run into the problem above. The loss of data occurs re: not safely removing because the buffer the computer uses to write data to the drive in the background still has information in it. If the buffer is still in the middle of filling the drive and you remove it unsafely, then the drive will have a partial file on it that may confuse a computer, thus the 'loss' of data, the computer doesn't know exactly where one file ends and another begins.

As far as I know, all NT-based systems since 2000 have a convert utility to simply switch from FAT32 to NTFS without losing any of your data. The unsafe-removal warning can be avoided by disabling write-caching, or enabling "Quick Removal" on Windows 7. This feature has also been available for many years. I've ripped out drives without ejecting them on several occasions - in practice it won't do anything to your drive except generate a few warnings of unsafe removal and sometimes warn you of data loss if you haven't set the options mentioned above. Of course, if you decide to remove the disc in the middle of a file transfer you won't avoid partial data loss no matter what system you're using.

Do Macs read NTFS ok? That's the only other thing I could see having an issue other than portable devices.

Back in the day, Macs could read, but could not write to NTFS volumes. I'm sure this isn't the case now.