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Using Time Machine on unsupported volumes
Authored by: Strod on Apr 18, '14 02:32:32PM

Another limitation of FAT32 that people may want to take into consideration if they want to use the hint is this:

While under some circumstances a FAT32 volume can be up to 2 TB (IIRC), a Disk Image created on it is limited to at most ~ 500 GB.

The reason is this: Files in FAT32 can be at most 4GB, so the only way to get a Disk Image greater than that is to make is a Sparse Bundle. BUT:

Sparse Bundles store the contents in "bands", that is, files that are at most 8 MB (that's 8 x 1024^2 bytes). So far, so good. But all the bands are saved in the same subdirectory, and AFAIK FAT32 can hold at most 65,535 files in a single directory.

65,535 files * 8 MB per file = 512 GB (where 1 GB = 1024^3 bytes). So your internal filesystem can hold less than that at most.



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