You can format the external hard drive or USB drive to make it compatible with both Mac and Windows machines. This thing is still unknown for many users but doesn't worry it's not complex.
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If you are techy and use Windows and Mac computers frequently, then you might need to transfer data between Mac and PC. Windows and macOS filesystems are different and you might need to format the drive every time to use on both platforms. How to play undertale on pc. You don't need to format the hard drive every time you can choose a filesystem while formating the drive so the hard drive or USB drive work on both Mac and PC
So to get rid of these situations we bring here a guide that will help you to format your drive which works on both platforms and you don't need to format and backup data every time. After cross-compatible formatting, simply unplug the drive from one machine and then plug it to another. Sounds good to you right? So let's started, how this works.
The external drive should be automatically detected and will prompt you to format the drive or keep it as a device used to store only photos, video and music. You will need to format the drive if. Most external hard drives (HD) are sold in a format called NTFS, which is designed to work with Windows. Macs read and write to a different format, called HFS+. Another format, called FAT32 is.
Understand file systems for Mac and PC
On Windows 10, when connecting a new internal or external hard drive, it's important to spend the time to format it before storing files. You want to do this to make sure that the drive is empty. There are: Erase Files, Erase Hard Drive, and Erase Free Space. Choose Erase Hard Drive option, and you should see a list of the drives connected to your PC/Mac including the external hard drive you want to reformat. How to get snapchat on windows 10 without bluestacks. Choose the external hard drive and click 'Erase' button at the bottom of the screen.
There are three common file system types to format an external USB or hard drive, SSD drive, SD card and etc. Fotomagico pro 5 6 13 15. FAT32, NTFS, and exFAT, let's have a look what's the difference between these formats.
FAT 32 Format
This format is pretty old but supported and it's not efficient as compared to NTFS. It doesn't support big features but offers great compatibility which means it's compatible with all versions of Windows. It can only support 4GB file size and up to 8TB hard drivers. It's not capable to store files larger than 4GB.
NTFS Format
NTFS is a modern format system and Windows also uses this format for itself and for other non-removable drives by default. This format is also compatible with all versions of Windows but limited to none Windows OS as FAT32. Ninja chef review.
exFAT Format
exFAT drives are faster at reading and writing as compared to FAT32. This format can store large files and it's also lightweight. How do i get word on my laptop. It's compatible with all versions of Windows and the best thing it's along with Windows it's also compatible with macOS, Linux, and Android, etc.
- If your drive is formatted as Windows default format NTFS then its only readable to macOS. You can't do more than that or you have to install a separate app on Mac to read write the drive.
- Drive with macOS format HFS+ cant readable to Windows.
- FAT32 format works on both Windows and Mac but the problem is you can only work with the files with Maximum size 4GB.
Learn more: Copy data on NTFS drive in macOS
FAT32 is much better than NTFS and HFS+ coz it works on both operating systems. You can also install drivers on each OS to make work your drive. So exFAT is much better than all of these formats and a simple option but this will not work on Leopard.
Format and external hard drive on Mac
First, let's see how to format an external hard drive or USB drive in macOS which works with both Mac and PC platforms, first plug-in your drive in macOS machine.
- Open Disk Utility on your macOS, press cmd + spacebar keys and type Disk Utility in the spotlight search. Open Disk Utility from the search results.
- On the Disk Utility interface, select an external drive click on the Erase button from top of the window (make sure and bcakup your drive before erasing it).
- Now enter the name for the external drive which will be used after formatting and also select exFAT for Format option and click on the Erase. This will format the drive as ExFAT format and your drive is now compatible with both platforms.
Format hard drive in Windows
The below steps for formatting external drive is for Windows 10 and also works the same with an old version of Windows. To format your external drive hard drive in Windows which works with both platforms, first plug-in your drive with Windows machine.
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Open Disk Management tool by right-clicking on start menu icon and then select Disk Management. Gorilla slot machine. Now right click on the external drive and click on format option (double-check the drive name and capacity to make sure you are going to format the right drive.)
Now enter the Volume label as you need and change the File system for exFat and click Ok. Now you are done.
How To Format External Hard Drive Mac
Share your experience, how do you use an external hard drive on both Mac and PC. Did you format the drive as exFAT ? or use any utility that helps the system to read another type of file system. Emulators ios 11. Please leave a comment below.
How Should I Format My External Hard Drive
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