File systems are are a method for storing and organizing data, so as to be able to manage files efficently and reliably. In the same way that books are organized on shelves in a library, file systems are labelled to describe how the information is stored, shelf sizes, etc.

And this is where there was a problem with the old file system, FAT 32. Designed by Microsoft, it dates from another era, as it has existed since Windows 95 OSR2. It was only designed for storage devices of up to several tens of gigabytes, far below todays terabyte capacities. In FAT 32, maxiumum “shelf” size is 4 GB and HD video files easily go beyond 10 GB.

The solution decided on was to migrate towards ext3, a system that supports larger files and is used on the majority of Linux based systems (remember that Android and the Archos system on previous MID generations were based on Linux).

No problem for Windows compatability. Linux is also compatible, of course. But Mac OS X, though a Unix, like Linux, does not support ext3 for the moment. Let’s see if Archos will provide a solution.

For more information on file systems, take a look at the Wikipedia page on the subject.