- #Exteernal hard drive format for mac and pc how to#
- #Exteernal hard drive format for mac and pc software#
- #Exteernal hard drive format for mac and pc Pc#
If you increase the cluster size significantly, the drive will only be usable by your Windows computer. By default, exFAT uses 32KB and 128KB data clusters when reading and writing (respectively) you can change this up to 32GB per function when choosing the formatting settings. If you choose to do this, however, it is important to avoid changing the settings of the file system too much when you format.
#Exteernal hard drive format for mac and pc Pc#
If you take an external hard drive and format it with the exFAT file system, it will be readable and writable on both your Windows PC and your Ma_c Both Windows and macOS support the exFAT file system, which is used for flash drives and other rewritable storage.
#Exteernal hard drive format for mac and pc how to#
There are a few ways to format a single external hard drive for both Mac and PC use without losing data or corrupting files How to format a computerīoth Windows and macOS support other file systems as well. This is due largely to file system optimizations that were made with a specific operating system in mind, though competition between Microsoft and Apple may play a part in the proprietary nature of their respective OS file systems. If you have newer computer models and are running newer versions of Windows and MacOS, the file systems used by your computers are incompatible. This is why it’s so tricky to format for Windows and Mac on the same hard drive. Unless you have set up your computer specifically to view the unsupported drives, you won’t see them in Explorer or Finder The file system organizes the data in such a way that the operating system can access and use what it needs, so if the file system isn’t supported by the OS then it has no way to actually access and read the data. The file system determines how the operating system manages data, how that data is stored, and what sort of storage blocks are used on the hard drive. When a hard drive is formatted, any data that’s currently on the drive is erased and a new file system is set up for a computer’s operating system to use.
#Exteernal hard drive format for mac and pc software#
You can create an external hard drive for Mac and PC that doesn’t require any additional software to function Understanding Formats
Setting up an external hard drive is a better solution than buying one of those programs. Some of the third-party solutions that can read Mac-formatted data on Windows may not be compatible with all files. Windows uses the NTFS (New Technology File System) format, while macOS uses either HFS+ (Hierarchical File System Plus, a legacy format used by older versions of macOS) or APFS (Apple File System, a newer format used by recent macOS releases. By default, Windows and macOS use different styles that aren’t compatible with each other. Having a single external hard drive that is compatible with both operating systems is beneficial for those who use both.