FAT stands for File Allocation Table, a term that describes what it does: maintains a table of each file's space allocation.

As it turns out, exFAT stands for "Extensible File Allocation Table" and strikes a good balance by providing features found in NTFS, but without the file size limitations that come with FAT32.

Read: Event Viewer not working in Windows Server FAT Partition A FAT partition uses the File Allocation Table (FAT) system, commonly FAT32 or exFAT, for organizing and storing files.