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Irritating SanDisk Cruzer 64GB thumb drive quirk

I recently purchased a Sandisk Cruzer 64GB thumb drive with the intention of dragging large video files from my MacBook Air onto it, plugging the drive into my BluRay player and watching the files on my television.


When I took it out of the box, I discovered it wouldn't accept files larger than 4GB unless I reformatted it, which I did.


So now it accepts files larger than 4GB, but now none of my three BluRay players recognize the drive.


At this point, I have tried all four formatting options under "Erase" and seem to be faced with these formatting choices:


  1. Both the MacBook Air and the BluRay players recognize the drive, but I can't put a file larger than 4GB on it.


2. I can put a file larger than 4GB on it and the MacBook Air will recognize the drive, but the BluRay players won't.


Unless perhaps I'm doing something wrong... any and all advice appreciated!


If this is a product quirk and there is no real solution, any suggestions for a reasonably-priced thumb drive that is compatible with large files across multiple devices?

Posted on Aug 24, 2021 11:12 AM

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Posted on Aug 24, 2021 5:45 PM

Slim possibility: there may be another wrinkle or two here - and that would be the format of the files. For instance, if you burnt a video to a DVD, you need software to render/format that file so it will play on a stand alone player. The result is great, but if you wanted to burn that again, you would first need to transfer the video back to your computer and need an encoder to change the format again. In other words, depending on their format, you cannot drag and drop some movies or videos from a computer to a hard drive and/or back again - it may not play correctly. And, the other possibility may be that you are running into DRM and/or copyright issues which some companies have started using.

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Aug 24, 2021 5:45 PM in response to doctorfreudstein

Slim possibility: there may be another wrinkle or two here - and that would be the format of the files. For instance, if you burnt a video to a DVD, you need software to render/format that file so it will play on a stand alone player. The result is great, but if you wanted to burn that again, you would first need to transfer the video back to your computer and need an encoder to change the format again. In other words, depending on their format, you cannot drag and drop some movies or videos from a computer to a hard drive and/or back again - it may not play correctly. And, the other possibility may be that you are running into DRM and/or copyright issues which some companies have started using.

Aug 24, 2021 1:27 PM in response to doctorfreudstein

Which format did you use? ExFat? I don't own a BR drive but I'd imagine they use only certain formats. Sounds like you have compatibility problem.


I do have several Sandisk 64GB Cruzers like yours. I would never use them for what you're wanting to do as they are all dismally slow.


For transfers like you're doing I use a 500 GB Samsung T7 portable SSD.

Aug 24, 2021 4:25 PM in response to woodmeister50

Thanks to you both for your responses.


I watch content via thumb drives and my BR player all the time, but guess I was never playing files larger than 4GB, because I wasn't aware of the differences between these various formats and their restrictions.


When I wound up with this large file to watch, I foolishly thought "well, I'll just get a higher-capacity thumb drive," not realizing what you both have educated me on above.


Appears my BR players and Smart TVs are FAT32, so seems like I'm out of luck?


Is the 500 GB Samsung T7 portable SSD a device I can plug into a BR player or Smart TV to watch large files? Or is it more of an easily portable storage device for large files and I'd still need to mirror my screen or whatever to watch them on my television?


Either way, appreciate y'all sharing your knowledge...

Irritating SanDisk Cruzer 64GB thumb drive quirk

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