Best Format for 8tb External Drives for CFW?

[ConsoleKid69]

Is this possible or not?
Ive looked and tried everything and not having much joy getting a large (over 2tb drive) to work on NTFS or Exfat

Ive made 2tb in both formats and they work fine so I know my setup is correct with isoprep etc but Im sure its down to how the drive is formatted and cluster size.

Is there an definitive guide for this? I know I can do the WD method but it will be fat32 which I want to avoid.

Any help would be great.

Thanks

 

[BigOnYa]

Is this possible or not?
Ive looked and tried everything and not having much joy getting a large (over 2tb drive) to work on NTFS or Exfat

From the web - Try this but format to NTFS instead of FAT32
"I've managed to get an 8tb external hdd working. All you need to do is format it properly.
How I did it is get an 8tb WD external (I couldn't get it working with a new seagate external) and then use the WD formatting utility and format it with XP compatible selected (this makes the hdd natively 4k sectors which fat32 can go up to 16tb as opposed to 2tb with 512b sectors). Once this is done, use any fat32 formatter (I use easeus partition) and make sure you select atleast 32kb cluster size if you are between 2-4tb, if you have 4-8tb you select atleast 64kb cluster size and if you have a bigger hdd than 8tb than use 128kb cluster size or bigger. You can use say 128kb cluster size on a 2tb hdd but it will make tiny files (like 1kb in size) use up more space but this isnt an issue if you store iso files. Also make sure the drive is MBR and not GPT, if wd formatter can't change that then windows has drive manager which you can change that. "

 

[adonios77]

From the web - Try this but format to NTFS instead of FAT32
"I've managed to get an 8tb external hdd working. All you need to do is format it properly.
How I did it is get an 8tb WD external (I couldn't get it working with a new seagate external) and then use the WD formatting utility and format it with XP compatible selected (this makes the hdd natively 4k sectors which fat32 can go up to 16tb as opposed to 2tb with 512b sectors). Once this is done, use any fat32 formatter (I use easeus partition) and make sure you select atleast 32kb cluster size if you are between 2-4tb, if you have 4-8tb you select atleast 64kb cluster size and if you have a bigger hdd than 8tb than use 128kb cluster size or bigger. You can use say 128kb cluster size on a 2tb hdd but it will make tiny files (like 1kb in size) use up more space but this isnt an issue if you store iso files. Also make sure the drive is MBR and not GPT, if wd formatter can't change that then windows has drive manager which you can change that. "

I saw your post (about 8TB project) to other "-place" (It's very good and informative work, thank you!) as I searching for "best format for PS3 USB External Drive", (by "best" I mean the fastest possible file transfer, ex. when I transfer .iso(s)).

FAT 32 is the native format for PS3 consoles, so the developers community started to work on this and that was brilliant because thus, so many abilities were unlocked.
As for now, Definitely, NTFS runs smoother and way easier to manage and I'll stay on this as I tested it for long time and many ways, so, definitely I avoid FAT32 (as for the very rare cases where a FAT32 is required, we can very easily configure a stick or Any USB Drive, or even a new FAT partition on existed USB Drive, and 'complete the job').

What's I don't understood are:
1) allocation size ? cluster size ? sectors ? (What is the GigaBytes (GB) correspondence per allocation size, cluster size, sectors?)
2) 'Disk type: Basic, Dynamic' (I know it works on both, but which is the best?) (Dynamic is 'less managed' after formatted, as for example you can't resize partitions? On Dynamic Disk, I tried to merge 2 ntfs partitions into 1 but ended with an 'ugly' 2 partitions under same DiskLetter (E)

So, which is the 'best format' for PS3 USB External Drive using <game>.ISOs ?
My goal is to collect the PS3 files (games, brews, tools and utilities) that are scattered here and there over time during my experiments.

 

[XFoxPrower]

If I remember right, and as far as I know, the only way is to format it as GPT, NTFS, Native 4K. WD's Quick Format Tool, when run in Compatibility Mode for Windows XP, will force MBR. I don't know what other tools or manufacturers provide this option. Worked for my 5TB WD Elements drive. Credit to Yoyo.