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. Mac mount android phone.
The computer I did use prior is a Dell XPS 13 running Windows 10. I have a 1TB Toshiba Canvio Slim ii external hard drive that I keep everything on. I know that in order for my Toshiba hard drive to be compatible with the new OS X, it must be formatted, but I will be loosing all of my data (total of 260gb). External Hard Drive Compatible With Mac And PC To set up, you plug your external drive into your Mac. Because your Mac formats your external hard drive as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) file system. And you are going to need to do that step first. WD external hard drives are fully compatible with the following operating systems: Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, and macOS. Unix and Linux operating systems are not supported by Western Digital.
Sometimes, deciding on the best external hard drive for PC or Mac can be a hard decision. In this day and age, external hard drives are extremely important in securing important photos, videos, and other files. Without a good external hard drive, all of your favorite files are at risk. As of recently, hard drives. Your pen drives, SD cards or external hard drives will turn blank and all your files will be gone after formatting. Therefore, back all files up before formatting. If you do not care about data, however, go ahead to format it to exFAT. You can format the external drive to exFAT both on a PC or a Mac.
Apfs to mac os journaled. If you are techy 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 formating the drive so the hard drive or USB drive work on both Mac and PC
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 to another. Sounds good to you right? So let’s started, how this works.
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.
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 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 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.
Learn more: Copy data on NTFS drive in macOS
FAT32 is much better than NTFS and HFS+ coz 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.
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 in macOS machine.
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 which works with both platforms, first plug-in your drive with Windows machine.
Open Disk Management tool by right-clicking on start menu icon and then select Disk Management. Now right click on the external drive and click on 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.
Sometimes, deciding on the best external hard drive for PC or Mac can be a hard decision. In this day and age, external hard drives are extremely important in securing important photos, videos, and other files. Without a good external hard drive, all of your favorite files are at risk. As of recently, hard drives have become more and more mainstream which results in the decrease in prices of many bigger hard drives. Important aspects include the speed of file transfer, the hardware look, warranty, and customer support. With all of those in mind, we have created a review list of the best external hard drives that are Mac and PC compatible.
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