The way you format your USB drive determines the speed of your Rekordbox export and if your drive is recognised by DJ controllers and CDJs like the CDJ 2000. So, obviously, choosing the right settings is crucial for convenience and compatibility. In this article, I’ll deep-dive into the right settings and how to format your USB drive for Rekordbox in Windows the right way.
Can CDJs read exFAT / NTFS? No, CDJs can’t! CDJs only read FAT32 and HFS+.
Best format for CDJ USB
The Pioneer CDJ machines support three types of file system formats:
- Microsoft FAT
- Microsoft FAT32
- Apple HFS+
We can’t format drives larger than 32GB with the Windows built-in tools. They just won’t let us do it. So we need third-party software called “Fat32 Format”. Just head to http://ridgecrop.co.uk/index.htm?guiformat.htm and click on the image to download the programme.
We can also format smaller drives with Fat32 Format, so this is the method I’m going to use for this tutorial.
- Before we start, make sure Rekordbox is closed
- Insert your USB drive
- Make sure all your Explorer windows are closed, otherwise, you can’t format the drive
- Start Fat32 Format
- Select the drive letter of your USB drive. NEVER choose C:\
- Select allocation size: 4096
- choose a name for your USB drive in “Volume label”
- Click Start
- Select OK
- Your drive is being formatted, this takes a few seconds
- Your drive is now finished formatting
- select Close
You can now export the music you need from Rekordbox. It should all work. Obvs, the better the Flash Drive then the quicker the transfer, too – if you are transferring 10,000’s of tracks. We have this working Al’s CDJs and my XR2. With the CDJs you will need a stick per CDJ.