2021 video<\/a> on his \u201cDave\u2019s Garage\u201d YouTube channel, retired Microsoft system engineer Dave Plummer explained why he chose the 32GB partition cap. When he picked the limit \u201con a rainy Tuesday morning\u201d in the mid-90s, he thought it would have an extremely short lifespan and would see an increase in the next revision. \u201cI picked the number 32GB as the limit and went on with my day,\u201d he said. \u201cI didn\u2019t start to regret that choice until SD cards got to the magic 32GB size many years later.\u201d<\/p>\nPlummer went on to dispute the myth that Microsoft imposed the 32GB cap to push the adoption of the company\u2019s NTFS format. He explained that NTFS was already widely adopted and that, to his knowledge, Microsoft never promoted it or made a dime from licensing it. Instead, he says FAT32\u2019s artificial cap was more about preventing wasted space (especially with small files) than deploying any sinister corporate strategies.<\/p>\n
If you really<\/em> want to nerd out on \u201890s disk formats, Plummer\u2019s three-year-old video goes into more detail about his arbitrary decision that \u2014 unbeknownst to him at the time \u2014\u00a0would last nearly 30 years.<\/p>\n