Tools: External hard drive format tool, File Explorer, Disk Management, DiskPart.Applies to: Format external hard drives on Windows computers.Guide 1: How to Format External Hard Drive for Mac and PC in Windows

Your drive is ready to format, refer to the respective guide here to set up your external hard drive ready for use on both Windows and Mac computers now. For a step-by-step guide, you can follow this link for help: how to back up external hard drive to cloud. Note: If your external hard drive currently stores many valuable data, remember to back it up to another location. Guide to Format External Hard Drive for Mac and PC So how to set the best format for your external hard drive and make it work on both Mac and PC? In the next part, you'll get to learn the steps in detail. Follow this page and get the answer instantly. You May Also Like: Some of you may wonder whether NTFS or exFAT is better for an external hard drive on Windows. Check the size of your external hard drive.

So how do I select a format for my external hard drive? Here is EaseUS Editor's suggestion here:

exFAT: Breaks file size of 4GB, support large storage devices with 64GB or larger capacity.

FAT32: 4GB file size limit, only supports devices with 32GB or smaller storage capacity.

So which is better? Here is a list of differences between the two formats, follow and check:

macOS and Mac OS X: 10.12.3 and older versionsĪccording to this table, it's clear now that both FAT32 and exFAT are compatible with both Mac and PC.

I switched to Samsung T5 or T7, but SanDisk offers will sure suffice. While I have a variety of “dual” USB-sticks I switched to use ExFat-formatted SSDs to copy data between my iDevices and others - the main observation being, that USB-sticks vary greatly in transfer speeds when connected to iDevices (transfer times are generally significantly slower compared to lap- or desktops). I own FE FileExplorer too - I simply didn’t check wether it offers similar reliability when copying data for the latest releases because FB Pro works for me (but FE Explorer offers a much better replay of various common video formats IMHO). There are certain technical differences between NTFS and ExFat and, yes, NTFS has some characteristics that allow much better reconstruction/recovery of the filesystem and its data in case of some destructive event.īut then again ExFat is virtually used on every photo camera on the planet to store and exchange photos and video - and while there are anecdotal references to dramatic disasters- it is reliable.

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