Shrink exFAT partition

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Is there any way to shrink an exFAT partition?

The windows disk manager has the "Shrink" option greyed out.

Fake Name

Posted 2012-02-23T11:23:56.207

Reputation: 2 134

What is the context of the partition? Is it internal, external, HDD, SSD, system partition, USB drive? More information, please. – None – 2012-02-24T00:16:19.840

3@Randolph West - How is that relevant? I have a device. It looks like a standard disk to windows. Any other information detracts from the question. I'm aware of the alternatives to shrinking a partition (and am in the precess of backing up the partitions contents to reformat). However, if I can shrink the partition, it will make my life easier. – Fake Name – 2012-02-24T00:50:49.240

Answers

14

The only tool I tested that can actually resize/extend an exFAT partition:

  • DiskGenius (ex Partition Guru) - v4.9.6.564 tested: Did the job, but not so geniously. It didn't understand my GPT partition layout (whole disk displayed as free). I had to rebuild the GPT with another tool that actually deleted my other linux partition. Be sure your disk manager sees all your partitions.

I got many errors that files had unallocated blocks after resizing, so I decided to reformat as NTFS.

All other "best partition manager" tools I tested at date (08/2018) DON'T SUPPORT exFAT resize/extend:

I don't think there is any tool that can resize/extend exFAT on Linux at the moment.

KrisWebDev

Posted 2012-02-23T11:23:56.207

Reputation: 578

1Thank you. I just used DiskGenius 5.0.0.589 to rebalance my 1TB HDD that has both exFAT and NTFS partitions. DiskGenius works perfectly and allow me to resize both exFAT and NTFS partitions. One note: for larger partition, the disk check may take a while, so be patient. – tdwong.star – 2018-09-22T07:20:57.780

DiskGenius worked fine for me (after also trying some of the other ones). Why do so many companies offer partition managers for free? I tend to be hesitant when so many (otherwise unknown) companies want me to install software that has admin access to my PC... – Christoph – 2020-01-06T20:14:29.340

I have tested it with newer versions: Paragon Hard Disk Manager Advanced 17.10.12 - does not work Gparted 1.1.0 - does not work. – Ashark – 2020-01-31T08:24:10.900

4

Yes.

The tool PartitionGuru Free is able to resize exFAT partitions - even doing a defrag when needed.

See also the blog of Eassos.

Jonas Heidelberg

Posted 2012-02-23T11:23:56.207

Reputation: 1 652

3

I'm not claiming to be an expert on this, and this is probably the first answer I've posted where I'm hoping I'm wrong... but I did find this:

Quora: How can I resize an exFat partition under Windows (or Mac), without losing data?

As far as I can tell this is not possible. Neither Mac or Windows' built-in disk partition utilities support this and I've not been able to find any external tools that do either.

(Quoted material is from 2012, so advances could have been made since then.)

To further respond to the comment made from SecurityMatt's answer, I don't think exFAT was really designed to be a very "modern" filesystem filled with modern design features. It was designed to be more modern than FAT32, by supporting larger partition sizes. It was basically Microsoft's answer to some limitation(s) that FAT had, and an opportunity for Microsoft to strengthen its claim on owning the intellectual property of a file format, by having a new file format created during a time when Microsoft has learned to be more clear about who owns the technology. I believe Microsoft intended to market exFAT for scenarios where low overhead is probably more desirable, such as little memory cards like SD cards (or, more applicably, either SDHC or SDXC cards). I don't believe exFAT was ever intended to be competing with NTFS by having lots of new/modern features.

Again, I haven't researched this as heavily as some other operating systems, and I could easily be out of date about some of the specifics. Hopefully some piece of this answer is somewhat helpful.

TOOGAM

Posted 2012-02-23T11:23:56.207

Reputation: 12 651

exFAT is a terrible file system technically. – neverMind9 – 2018-02-11T23:58:50.037

Yes, exFAT and FAT in general is terrible. But this doesn't really answer the question. Especially since the answer happens to be "Yes", even if the tools that come with the OS can't do it. I can boot a Linux distribution off of a USB stick and the partitioning utilities there can do it without a problem. – Omnifarious – 2018-04-29T21:26:03.883

@Omnifarious : The question was answered. (The answer is the quoted part.) The answer was "No". Now, if you disagree with that answer because you find a solution, great! (I wrote this answer in 2015. I see that in 2017 someone posted an answer that mentions some software that serves as a solution.) However, even if you disagree with that answer (and I might disagree with it now, too), I'd say it is wrong to say that this "answer" did not answer the question. It did provide an answer, even if that old answer is not currently accurate due to some newer developments. – TOOGAM – 2018-04-30T14:08:04.063

Actually, on reading more, I discovered I was wrong (sorry about that). But ExFAT is more appropriately understood as a typical Microsoft attempt to drive competitors out of an industry. It's a very proprietary (lots of patents) filesystem that's designed for efficiency on SSDs. Partition resizing is hard to come by because you risk being sued to pieces by Microsoft if you do it. – Omnifarious – 2018-08-15T23:06:14.333

2

I thought you could use gparted and a Linux distribution to do this. I was very wrong. It turns out that ExFAT is an evil, inappropriately named (because it, in fact, has nothing to do with FAT) technology that's heavily proprietary. IMHO, people should boycott any drive manufacturer who ships with it by default because you're basically being forced to pay Microsoft for the 'privilege' of having them make predatory use of IP law to destroy competitors.

And if you're going to be engaging in a transaction like that, they should be paying you to use such a drive.

Omnifarious

Posted 2012-02-23T11:23:56.207

Reputation: 538

gparted can't resize exfat, as you can see on View → File System Support. Even with exfat-utils and exfat-fuse installed. – KrisWebDev – 2018-08-15T08:33:43.030

@KrisWebDev - I will fix my answer. I didn't realize what an awful thing exfat was (I thought it was just FAT, but no, it's not FAT at all, and heavily patent encumbered and a terrible thing all around) at the time I wrote it. I thought exFAT was just a fancy name for FAT32 or something. :-( – Omnifarious – 2018-08-15T22:59:54.493

1

Since it is not possible to resize it I solved it like this:

  1. Backed up the files
  2. Formatted to NTFS (using the Disk Manager)
  3. Resized NTFS
  4. Created new FAT32 Volume (since that was why I wanted to shrink it)
  5. Formatted to exFat (on the Disk Manager)
  6. Downloaded the files back into the HDD

SomeDudeWhoHadThisIssue

Posted 2012-02-23T11:23:56.207

Reputation: 19

This is the gist of my solution too. – Gabriel Staples – 2016-05-16T03:02:26.133

PS: for backing up/copying large chunks of data, and/or lots of files, FreeFileSync (http://www.freefilesync.org/) is hands-down the best free tool to use!

– Gabriel Staples – 2016-05-16T03:36:09.130

-1

FAT does not support shrinking. NTFS is the first Microsoft filesystem which supports dynamically reducing the size of the partition on disk.

SecurityMatt

Posted 2012-02-23T11:23:56.207

Reputation: 2 857

2FAT can definitely support resizing. The question didn't ask about only internal tools: the question was, "Is there any way"? Third party tools, like PartEd, would seem to be fair game. – TOOGAM – 2015-10-08T17:37:04.563

3Are we talking FAT or exFAT here? – Christian – 2015-11-27T18:06:38.843

1Have you ever used a partitioning tool? Most modern ones can freely resize common file systems without problem – phuclv – 2016-08-12T09:47:26.023

4Does the exFAT documentation explicitly state this? That's pretty lacking in foresight for what is supposed to be a modern file system. – Fake Name – 2012-02-24T00:51:46.307

Asked: 2012-02-23T11:23:56.207

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Active: 2018-09-22T08:58:25.150