With Android 9, a very basic support was also added to AOSP: “Android doesn’t natively support ex. FAT, but we’re at least willing to try mounting an ex. FAT filesystem if we detect the Linux kernel supports it, and if helper binaries are present.”.
Android can’t run NTFS natively, so it’s not worth the hassle to get it running when you can just reformat your drive into a file system that Android supports out of the box., ex FAT is that file system, assuming you have a newer Android device.
As of today (03-Apr-2020), ex. FAT is not yet officially supported in AOSP., ex FAT – a filesystem developed by Microsoft – was (is?) not open-source, so it was never a part of Linux (and hence Android) kernel over patent issues.
Flash Drives may also be formatted in ex, and fat. The operating system must support the ex. FAT file system in order for these devices to function properly.
And the compatibility is a problem too., and what’s more?, the ex FAT file system is compatibility with both Windows and Mac, so if you want to transfer data between computers with these two different operating systems, formatting a USB flash drive with ex. FAT is the best choice.
What is exFAT and how to use it?
It is created to be used on flash memory like USB flash drives, SD cards and so on. The name of ex. FAT gives a hint for its precursors: FAT file system., ex FAT is a newer version of the FAT32 file system, and you can think it this way: it is a middle ground between FAT32 and NTFS file system (New Technology File System).
The Extended File Allocation Table (ex. FAT) file system is another Microsoft design, that was first introduced in 2006 as part of Windows CE 6.0. It allows for files that are larger that 4GB and it was adopted by the SD Card Association as the default file system for SDXC cards.
What file system does Android use for external storage?
Android has always supported the FAT32, Ext3, and Ext4 file system formats, but external drives are often formatted in ex. FAT or NTFS if they’re over 4GB in size or use files that are over 4GB in size. Android can’t run NTFS natively, so it’s not worth the hassle to get it running when you can just reformat your drive into a file system.
Why doesn’t Android use ext4 instead of FAT32?
Android happily coexists with many other filesystems, and even if you’re running linux, which also works well with other FS, why not build a usb that is more universally readable, using fat32 or ex, and fat. Only the truly pedantic would decide to use ext4 specifically, since even linux works fine with every windows format, even ex, and fat.