exFAT, the 64-bit upgrade to FAT32

Most drives you buy are preformatted with a FAT32 file system by the manufacturer. This file system is interoperable with all operating systems. However, it is archaic in the sense that it was designed for use on 32-bit systems and can only handle a maximum file size of ~4 GB (precisely 2³² − 1 bytes).

The exFAT file system is an upgrade to FAT32 designed for use on 64-bit systems and is interoperable with most modern operating systems. This is why it can handle file sizes greater than 4 GB. This article shows how you should format a USB or external hard drive to the exFAT file system on Linux Mint or Ubuntu.

Identify the USB Drive

Use the fdisk command to list all connected drives and identify your USB drive. fdisk, short for format disk, is a powerful CLI utility used to manage the structure of a drive. It can create, delete, and resize partitions.

sudo fdisk -l

The -l flag lists the partition tables for specified disks or all disks if no disk is specified. It lets you view details about all the available partitions in your system and see their /dev names. For example /dev/sda or /dev/sdb.

Unmount the Drive

Make sure the drive is not mounted to ensure that the operation is performed safely, and correctly and to prevent data corruption.

Use the umount command. It is a CLI utility used to manually unmount filesystems on Linux and other Unix-like operating systems.

sudo umount /dev/sdb1

Install exFAT Utilities

exFAT utilities are programs which will help format drives to ExFAT, FAT, FAT32, or NTFS file systems completely. Run the following commands to install them:

sudo apt install exfat-utils

or

sudo apt install exfatprogs

Format the Drive

The gdisk CLI utility is a text-mode menu-driven program for the creation and manipulation of partition tables. It is similar to fdisk, but gdisk modifies GPT partitions. It also has the capability of transforming MBR partitions or BSD disklabels into GPT partitions.

sudo gdisk /dev/sdb1

When gdisk starts, it performs a scan for four types of existing partition tables and displays the results:

MBR is the common Master Boot Record partitioning system. There are four MBR states: MBR only, protective, hybrid, or not present.

BSD is the Berkeley Standard Distribution (BSD) disk label system used on some computers that run BSD Unix, like FreeBSD, OpenBSD, i.a.
APM is the Apple Partition Map used on the 680x0 and PowerPC-based Macintoshes. The BSD and APM scans report either present or not present.

GPT is the GUID Partition Table. GPT can report three states: present, not present, or damaged.

Create a new GPT partition table

The defaults will create a new partition that spans the whole drive. Be sure to choose the correct type 0700.

sudo mkfs.exfat /dev/sdb1

The drive is now be readable and writable on Linux, OSX, and Windows.

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