Some time ago they wrote us about the impossibility of being able to use ExFAT devices in Linux, although it is not common to get units formatted in this format, all distros should be able to handle them by default, in case your distro is not one of the lucky ones and you have not been able to use your device with this tutorial we hope that now if you can do it.
What is ExFAT?
ExFAT is a light file system, which was created with the purpose of being used in flash drives since it is a lighter format than NTFS, natively this format is compatible with all current operating systems, but in some distros it does not get up automatically the device.
One of the disadvantages of ExFAT is that it does not have as many security measures as NTFS but if it exceeds the limitations of the famous FAT32, now, the biggest user of ExFAT is to prepare multimedia units that will later be reproduced on devices such as televisions, videoconsola , phones, players among others.
ExFAT allows files of any size and partitions without limitations, so it is prepared for large disks as external devices with small capabilities.
How to use ExFAT drives in Linux?
Sometimes your distro recognizes the device but prevents access to the documents stored in it, regardless of what your problem, the solution is the same. We just have to install exFat with the following command:
sudo apt install exfat-fuse exfat-utils
After this we can simply use our device correctly. In some cases the problem persists, for this we must create the multimedia folder with the following command:
sudo mkdir /media/exfats
Then we must mount our device in the corresponding directory with the following command:
sudo mount -t exfat /dev/sdb1 /media/exfats
In case you want to remove the device simply execute the following command:
sudo umount /dev/sdb1
With these simple but powerful steps we will be able to use without any problem any device with ExFAT format.
