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. 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.

How to Quickly Format External Hard Drive for Mac and PC without Losing DataĪs we know, external hard drives are widely used to backup data or interchange files among different computers.

Apple’s Experimental NTFS-Writing Support: Don’t Do This, Seriously.

The Best Free Third-Party Drivers: FUSE for macOS.

The Best Paid Third-Party Driver: Paragon NTFS for Mac.

Three Options for Accessing NTFS Drives on Mac.

Why Need to Format External Hard Drive for Mac and PC.

Thumb drive format for mac and pc