Format Flash Drive For Both Mac And Pc

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.

If you’re both Mac users, swell; with Mac and Windows in the mix, you might be tempted to pick FAT32 when formatting that thumb drive. But FAT32 is distinctly out of date. Designed for an earlier. Prepare a Thumb Drive for Both Windows and OS X On Windows, connect your thumb drive. Click Start File Explorer This PC. Right-click your flash drive and then select Format. Looking to share an external hard drive between a Mac and PC? The best way to do it is with a drive formatted as FAT32. Though this format has some limitations, it enjoys nearly universal support.

If you are tech savvy 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. You don’t need to format the hard drive every time you can choose a filesystem while formatting the drive so the hard drive or USB drive work on both Mac and PC

Hard drives advertised as being compatible with Windows and Mac OS may have misled you into thinking you could actually use one hard drive for both computers. You can, but not out of the box.
If you want to optimize performance, it’s best to format the drive using the computer’s native file system. If you need to use your drive on both Mac and PC then it’s best to format exFAT. If you are not sure which one is best for you the File System Format Comparisions highlights.

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 into another. Sounds good to you right? So let’s started, how this works.

Understand file systems for Mac and Windows

There are three common file system types to format an external USB or hard drive, SSD drive, SD card and etc. 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.

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. 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 it’s 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 files with a maximum size of 4GB.

Learn more: Copy data on NTFS drive in macOS

FAT32 is much better than NTFS and HFS+ becuase 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 a USB Drive on Mac

Time needed: 5 minutes.

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 into a macOS machine.

Disk Utility
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.
Erase Drive
On the Disk Utility interface, select an external drive click on the Erase button from the top of the window (make sure and backup your drive before erasing it).
Drive format
Now enter the name for the external drive which will be used after formatting and also select the 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 USB Drive in Windows

Format Flash Drive For Mac And Pc Large Files

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 to use on Mac and PC platforms, first plug-in your drive with a Windows machine.

Open the Disk Management tool by right-clicking on the start menu icon and then select Disk Management. Now right click on the external drive and click on the 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.

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. Please leave a comment below.

Types of File Systems

It is vital that we are aware that each developer implements a series of file systems for their operating system, for example, we have the following:

Windows:

FAT32

NTFS

exFAT

Linux:

ext2

ext3

ext4

ReiserFS

Swap

Mac OS:

HFS +

MS-DOS (FAT)

exFAT

APFS (Present in the new edition of macOS High Sierra)

Each system manages its file system and in this way, USB drive with NTFS can only be recognized in Windows environments but not in Linux or macOS environments, even if it is accepted in macOS we can not make changes to it.

At this point, another question arises, what type of file system to use that is compatible with these three operating systems?

In technical terms, it has been recommended that the file system of the USB drives be FAT32 thanks to the fact that it is an old file system and that it has evolved to FAT32 at present, but there is a format that is much better regarding security, reliability, and compatibility: exFAT.

Let’s see in detail what is and what covers each of these file systems.

FAT32:

This format is one of the most compatible, but due to its useful life, it has been in force since the 90s, it has a series of limitations that can affect the pace of updates we are experiencing today.
Being a format with so much active time is compatible with virtually any operating system.

As mentioned, it has its limitations such as the inability to host files larger than 4 GB or that partitions with this file system cannot have more than 8 TB capacity.

Format Flash Drive For Mac And Pc 2017

exFAT:

exFAT is in a way a more modern and dynamic FAT32 which was developed in 2006 and is present in most modern operating systems.

By default, all traditional operating systems, Windows, Linux or Mac OS are compatible with exFAT, and its use is highly recommended for external drives, such as USB devices or external drives, thanks to its simplicity and multiple features.

Now we will analyze a little more in detail the fields of action where these two file systems are compatible to know which is the best option to choose.

Device Support

This is the first fundamental field since if the USB device formatted with FAT23 or exFAT is not compatible with the device where it has to be connected it will be impossible for it to be recognized and to access its contents.

In this field, we can say that FAT32 has an advantage over exFAT because, being an old file system, it is compatible with all operating systems and devices such as game consoles, Smart TV, multimedia players and others.

ExFAT, although it is currently compatible with more than 95% of the devices on the market, can still find individual limitations in some Linux distros or Android devices.

In some Linux distros the exFAT file system will not be recognized immediately, so we must install the several utilities by executing the following line:

Then update the packages running the line:

Reading & Writing Speed

Another of the pillars in a file system is the ability with which this can access the content and read or write it since this depends on optimal performance which is a highly required value today. Undoubtedly in this regard exFAT outperforms FAT32 to be a much more recent technology which is compatible with USB 3.0 which can have a transfer rate up to 5 Gbps.

In the previous graphic of flexense we can see the performance of exFAT on FAT32, and in the following link we will be able to look in detail multiple operations carried out by this software developer called Flexsense

Size of Supported Files

Undoubtedly on this field wins exFAT because, as we mentioned above, FAT32 only allows files with a maximum capacity of 4 GB in partitions that do not exceed 8 TB of storage while exFAT is virtually unlimited in this aspect to support 16ZB files.

Access Flash Drive On Mac

How To Format a USB drive with exFAT

Starting from the detail that exFAT is the most practical and functional file system, unless we are not going to use files of more than 4 GB, this is the process of formatting the USB drives with exFAT.

It will first be necessary to install the exFAT tools by executing the following command, as we have mentioned before:

Later we run the fdisk -l line to list the active disks in the system.

There we will locate the USB drive which has the extension /dev/sd** (Replace the ** with the indicated number)
Once the USB disk is identified, we will execute the following syntax:

As we understand, we have the freedom to select the best file system for our USB drives to have the best capacity and performance.

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