The New Technology File System or NTFS for short is a file system developed by Microsoft for Windows operating system. It used by the old hard drive and currently is part of USB flash drives.
However, all the majority of flash drives use FAT32 format by default. Hence, to replace it with NTFS, there are some steps you need to take. Here’s the guide!
NOTE: Please back up the USB stick data before formatting FAT32 to NTFS. This procedure will clean your USB stick once finished.
How to format USB to NTFS in Windows 10
1. Go to File Explorer. Then locate the USB flash drives that you intended, the section generally separated from Local Disk.
2. Next, right-click on it and select Format…
3. After that, you will see a new window showing some information about the device. On the File system section, select NTFS.
4. Now, click Start to process the formatting.
You will see another pop-up box warn about the effect of this action. As long you have backup your files, you can click OK to proceed.
5. Wait for a few seconds, usually less than a minute until notification shows up and says the formatting is complete and the USB flash drive with the NTFS format is ready to use.
However, there are many things you should know about NTFS.
NTFS Pros:
- Can receive a single file over 4 GB in size
- Faster than FAT32
- Works very well on the Windows platform (Windows OS, Windows Phone, Xbox, etc.)
- Safely Removable Devices before ejection is not mandatory
NTFS Cons:
- Cannot receive files from other platforms except Windows (read-only)
Despite its compatibility with Windows, NTFS isn’t a great format option if you are regularly using Mac or Linux along with Windows PC. So, choose the format of USB flash drives wisely if you don’t want to be bothered to switch to a different format too often.
