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1. #Formatting a mac external hard drive for windows how to#
2. #Formatting a mac external hard drive for windows for mac#
3. #Formatting a mac external hard drive for windows mac os x#
4. #Formatting a mac external hard drive for windows software#

#Formatting a mac external hard drive for windows for mac#

Some paid third-party NTFS drivers for Mac can be used to access NTFS drives on Mac. Three Options for Accessing NTFS Drives on Mac Paid Third-Party Drivers Nevertheless, a lot of users complained that exFAT is slow, and they highly suggest using FAT32 if you can avoid file size constraints.

Format External Hard Drive For Mac And Pc 2019 Of course, there is free partition manager that can help create a FAT32 volume up to 2TB, which also functions correctly.ĮxFAT: exFAT has very large file size and partition size limits, which means it's a good idea to format your external hard drive to exFAT. In addition, a FAT32 partition must be not more than 32GB if you create it in Windows Disk Management.

If your external drive saves files larger than 4GB or you plan to save larger files to this drive, converting to FAT32 is not recommended. However, single files on a FAT32 drive can't be larger than 4GB. As long as we format the external hard drive to one of these 2 file systems, it can be shared between Mac and Windows.īoth FAT32 and exFAT have advantages and disadvantages.įAT32: FAT32 works with all versions of Windows, Mac OS, Linux, game consoles, etc. Similarly, Windows OS will ask us to format the HFS+ formatted drive when we connecting such a disk, let along edit files saved on HFS+ formatted hard disks unless we resort to third party programs.īut luckily, there are file systems well supported by both Mac and Windows PC, and they are FAT32 (it might be called MS-DOS on Mac) and exFAT.

#Formatting a mac external hard drive for windows mac os x#

However, when we connect a NTFS formatted disk to Mac, Mac OS X doesn't allow us to write files to the drive neither edit files, though it can read a NTFS drive. To put it simply, if you want to share external hard drive between Mac and PC, you need to format an external hard drive for Mac and PC.Ĭurrently, hard drives for Windows PC are always formatted with NTFS, while hard disks for Mac are formatted with HFS+. Why Need to Format External Hard Drive for Mac and PC Actually, most external hard disks could be compatible with Mac and PC as long as you format them correctly. Well, is there an external hard drive that could be shared between Mac and Windows PC? Of course, there is.

#Formatting a mac external hard drive for windows how to#

Want to format an external hard drive for Mac and Windows PC? Do you know how to do this work easily? This MiniTool article will show you specific methods to make external hard drive compatible with Mac and PC, which are easy and safe to complete.Īs we know, external hard drives are widely used to backup data or interchange files among different computers. It supports Windows 10/8/7/Vista/XP, both 32 and 64 bit.

#Formatting a mac external hard drive for windows software#

Format external hard drive with third party software AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard is a great free partition format tool that allows you to format external hard drive to Ext2, Ext3, Ext4, FAT32, NTFS, exFAT, etc. Attach the drive you wish to format for dual compatibility to the Mac Click the drive name on the left side list in Disk Utility, and then click the Erase tab Then click the pulldown menu alongside Format and select MS-DOS (FAT) Give the drive a name (optional) and click the Erase button to format the drive. The instructions below are for Windows 10, but other versions of Windows from Windows 7 and up can also format an external drive as exFAT for use with Mac as well. If you are not sure which one is best for you the File System Format Comparisions highlights the main difference between file systems. If you need to use your drive on both Mac and PC then it’s best to format exFAT. If you want to optimize performance, it’s best to format the drive using the computer’s native file system. A new window will open, select the desired file system, keep the allocation unit size to default and check mark quick format (or it will take more time). Plug in your external HDD to the USB port of your computer then go to my computer find your external drive right-click it and select format.