Question : Problem: How to remove limit on number of files within a folder on a usb external drive

Hi, this question actually forked out of another question. If you like you can see the original at:
http://www.experts-exchange.com/OS/Linux/Q_23635590.html#a22199216

but Ill copy all the pertinent info here.

setup:
I have a WD Passport type usb external hard drive attached, and I want to move roughly 300,000 files to it which I will then take to a windows machine and move off. Each file averages about 200k, with the largest Ive seen at about 1mB. The usb drive holds 250GB.

problem:
When I try to move files over, it copies almost exactly 19550 files (3.8GB) EVERY time and then gives me an error that the disk is full. This is consistant even when pulling from a different source of files, so its not a bad file issue. Originally the filesystem (default straight from manufacturer) was listed as msdos. On suggestion when the issue came up on the other post I did the following:

unmounted, and set:
/dev/sdc1        /sdc1            auto        noauto,user,umask=0      0   0

in fstab. Ran:
mkdosfs /dev/sdc1 -F 32
mount  /dev/sdc1  /disk

and it told me I have to specify file system, so:
mount  -t  vfat /dev/sdc1   /disk

I just ran another test and got the same result, 19546 files (3,8GB) and it thinks the disk is full.

Answer : Problem: How to remove limit on number of files within a folder on a usb external drive

NTFS is not well supported yet in Linux, at least not in standard kernels from kernel.org. This from the help screen in "make xconfig" at 2.6.25.4:

The only supported operation is overwriting existing files, without
changing the file length. No file or directory creation, deletion or
renaming is possible. Note only non-resident files can be written to
so you may find that some very small files (<500 bytes or so) cannot
be written to.

While we cannot guarantee that it will not damage any data, we have
so far not received a single report where the driver would have
damaged someones data so we assume it is perfectly safe to use.

Note: While write support is safe in this version (a rewrite from
scratch of the NTFS support), it should be noted that the old NTFS
write support, included in Linux 2.5.10 and before (since 1997),
is not safe.