If you try to format a USB drive to NTFS in Windows you might notice there is no NTFS option, only FAT and FAT32 are available. But there is a simple and easy tweak in Windows which can let you format a USB drive to NTFS but before going to that I will first put some light on why Windows didn't include the NTFS format option by default to USB flash drive.
While there are some benefits of NTFS file system there are also some drawbacks of it.
Advantages of NTFS filesystem
- NTFS file system lets you add file larger than 4GB into the drive.
- You can compress the data to get some extra free space on the drive.
- You can also create partition of a USB flash drive.
- You can add read, write and access permission to files.
- In NTFS file system the reading and writing process takes a lot of times because of its complex features and behaviors.
- NTFS drives are not readable in Windows 2000 and older operating system.
- NTFS file system is also not supported by most version of Linux.
But its totally upon the priority of the user which features and functions he want the most. So lets get to the guide.
How to format a USB flash drive or and external hard-drive to NTFS
- Plug the USB device into the computer.
- Right click on "My Computer" and click on "Manage".
- Navigate to "Device Manager" and expand the "Disk Drives" in the left column. You should see your USB device listed below.
- Right click the USB device that you want to format to NTFS and click on "Properties"
- Go to "Policy" tab and select "Optimize for Performance" and click "OK".
Thats it. Now you will be able to choose NTFS in the format option of USB drive Sweet! You can now use the way you want your USB flash drive.
Leave a comment if you face any problem following this tutorial and don't forget to share the knowledge by liking and sharing on FaceBook.
