Probably a dumb question but...


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So I have a large (22GB) 720p file on my external hard drive. Naturally it's formatted in NTFS, otherwise the file couldn't be there. I looked around for stickies, did some bing-ing, but honestly, is the only supported external drive file system fat32? On my 360 I have the options of fat32 and HFS, and I'm really suprised to find the PS3 only does fat32. Is this really the state of affairs? Is there a planned update in the future or anything? For a media powerhouse that 'does more', a 4GB file limit is really quite small.

Just wanted to make sure I'm not doing something massively wrong or stupid?

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Yeah, only fat32 for PS3 I'm afraid, but if that large file you're having is a mkv, just use a converter/splitter such as mkv2vob. Can set it up to split file into 4gig chunks easily.

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So I have a large (22GB) 720p file on my external hard drive. Naturally it's formatted in NTFS, otherwise the file couldn't be there. I looked around for stickies, did some bing-ing, but honestly, is the only supported external drive file system fat32? On my 360 I have the options of fat32 and HFS, and I'm really suprised to find the PS3 only does fat32. Is this really the state of affairs? Is there a planned update in the future or anything? For a media powerhouse that 'does more', a 4GB file limit is really quite small.

Just wanted to make sure I'm not doing something massively wrong or stupid?

Yes, the PS3 supports FAT32 only. You can use something like PS3MediaServer and stream the content to your PS3 or even WMP.

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It sucks, but I got used to it, my NAS is hooked in (formatted fat32 of course) and has been for over a year, I don't know WHY they are sticking with Fat, but oh well, there isn't any noticeable issues with it, especially since it's only job is to hold all our movies.

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Argh, that's seriously frustrating. I figured it was a case of stream or GTFO, but blah, was kind of hoping there was some trick I was missing out on. Thanks guys. Woo for fourteen year old archaic filing systems limiting my fun :(

Guess I'll copy it to the 2TB NAS.

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I know this is the sony section but the 360 has the same file size limitation. I had a few over 4gb videos on my usb stick and had to cut it in half to watch

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I know this is the sony section but the 360 has the same file size limitation. I had a few over 4gb videos on my usb stick and had to cut it in half to watch

This thread has served it's purposes, so I'm not too worried about taking it off-topic;

The Xbox 360 and PS3 will both read from FAT32 formatted USB sticks / USB external hard drive. It's a limitation of the FAT32 file system that only allows it to have a maximum of a 4GB file. The difference is that the Xbox 360 will read from an HFS volume, which doesn't have a 4GB limitation, although, HFS volumes are harder to read/write to from Windows.

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It would be nice if they used something FOSS, like ext2 at a minimum. But I'm sure if they did the patent trolls would come out of the woodwork :(

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Microsoft developed NTFS so you might guess to why the PS3 does not support it.

That's pretty weak logic, Microsoft also developed FAT12, FAT16 and FAT32 (the last of which the PS3 uses). There's NTFS support in Linux via NTFS-3G.

Something like exFAT would be ideal (it's a low-overhead, fast filing system with large file and large volume suport). It's starting to gain some traction in consumer devices as a replacement to FAT32 that isn't limited by 4GB file sizes (which is an issue for stuff like video cameras). It's supported natively in Windows Vista and 7, as well as XP via update, and it's the default filing system for SDXC cards.

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Maybe in the (very far) future, a firmware update will add support for NTFS and other file systems. For now, streaming is your best option. Since the PS3 has a Gigabit port, just hook it up and it will stream anything without a hitch.

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You can copy the file over onto the internal harddisk via the media centre. I've done this with 6GB files and works just fine, just a long process over wifi :pinch:

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It sucks, but I got used to it, my NAS is hooked in (formatted fat32 of course) and has been for over a year, I don't know WHY they are sticking with Fat, but oh well, there isn't any noticeable issues with it, especially since it's only job is to hold all our movies.

Because there are ways to support FAT without violating any patents, thing that hasnt been found yet in other FSs.

The replies will problably be about NTFS and the Xbox 360; Do note, that the Xbox 360 was years into development and there might have not been a way to fully integrated NTFS into the OS used by the Xbox 360.

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You can copy the file over onto the internal harddisk via the media centre. I've done this with 6GB files and works just fine, just a long process over wifi :pinch:

Does that actually work though with files above 6 gigs? I have a 9gig bluray movie I tried to copy over one day. Set the ps3 up on the media server, started the copy.... 4 hours later, it said it had copied 14 gigs of the file... that was only 9 gigs. I stopped it and the file was erased, but I think that if it is too big, it just errors out sort of. Can anyone confirm or deny this? Because if it is true, I have a 17gig movie I'd like to transfer over and free some comp space on lol.

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Maybe in the (very far) future, a firmware update will add support for NTFS and other file systems.

Yeah right...

Its sony we are talking about.

I would like to see that too as mkv support also among other things but....

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