If you have an external hard drive or USB flash drive that you’d like to use on both Macs and Windows PCs, choosing the right file system to format the drive can be confusing. Learn a few ways to make your drive Mac and PC friendly.
Need to access or transfer files between Mac and PC? As simple as this task sounds, it’s not very straightforward for inexperienced users. Since Mac OS X and Windows use totally different file systems, the way a drive is formatted can determine what type of computer it will work with. In fact, there are four ways you can format an external or USB flash drive to achieve varying degrees of compatibility between Macs and PCs. Let’s take a look at them:
External hard drive for mac and pc interchangeable. In the resulut, your external hard drive will work just fine with Mac and Windows. You can format your external hard drive from either the PC or Mac. Just keep in mind if you want to use your drive also for OS X’s Time Machine backups, we advise you to format your drive through Mac because there is an additional step to make drive compatible. Aug 16, 2019 If you buy a new external hard drive, you may notice that working between Mac and PC is an often difficult - but it doesn't need to be. We'll show you everything you need to know about the. May 22, 2019 Best External Drive for Mac and PC Interchangeable: Our Picks in 2019 1. G-Technology Portable External Hard Drive 2TB. This drive is preformatted just for you, offering a high transfer rate for fast file access and connects easily via USB-C. It will definitely stand up to regular use of creative editing applications and store. The Good News! The good news is, that you can adjust pretty much any external hard drive that can plug into both your Mac and your PC. In effect, change the drive so that both systems can read and write to it.
Oct 25, 2018 I know Mac operating system doesn’t fully supports NTFS formatted drive. But if I format the Seagate external hard drive to HFS+ file system, it will not supported by my Windows computer. I want to know that what I should format the Seagate external hard drive to, so that it can be compatible both with Mac and PC. Is there any advice? Oct 15, 2019 Buying an External Drive: What You Need to Know. In an era when you can get 50GB of iCloud storage for less than $1 per month, external hard.
External Hard Drive For Mac And Pc Interchangeable 2019
HFS+
Mac OS X’s native file system is HFS+ (also known as Mac OS Extended), and it’s the only one that works with Time Machine. But while HFS+ is the best way to format drives for use on Macs, Windows does not support it. If you’re only going to be using your external or USB flash drive with certain PCs – such as at home or the office – you might be interested in a program called MacDrive. When you install MacDrive on a Windows PC, it will be able to seamlessly read & write to HFS+ drives. How to check my computer for viruses mac. This isn’t a good solution if you need your drive to work on any PC without installing software, though.
How to get microsoft access for mac. Nov 23, 2017 Question: Q: Microsoft Access for Mac. Hey there, i am studying the functions of microsoft access and just found out that it is not available on mac. Is there a way to get microsoft access on mac or something really similar and having similar functions and controls. It would be just great if somebody could help me a.s.a.p. From time to time, Apple computer owners may wonder whether it is possible to use the features of Microsoft Access on Mac. Some of the functions may be really helpful no matter how you feel about Microsoft or Windows in particular. Most of the experts insist on a fact it is impossible to get Microsoft Access on Apple computers.
NTFS
The native Windows file system is NTFS, which is only partially compatible with Mac OS X. Macs can read files on NTFS drives, but it cannot write to them. So if you need to get files from a PC to your Mac, NTFS is a decent option. However, you won’t be able to move files in the other direction, from Mac to PC.
External Hard Drive For Mac And Windows
FAT32
The most universally supported way to format your drive is with the FAT32 file system. It works with all versions of Mac OS X and Windows. Case closed, right? Well, not so fast. Unfortunately, FAT32 is a very old file system and has some technical limitations. For example, you cannot save files that are larger than 4GB on a FAT32-formatted drive. This is a deal-breaker if you work with huge files. The other limitation is the total size of the partition. If you format your FAT32 drive in Windows, the drive partition cannot be larger than 32GB. If you format it from a Mac running 10.7 Lion, the drive partition can be up to 2TB. Much better, except for that pesky 4GB limit.
exFAT
The exFAT file system eliminates the two major deficiencies of FAT32: the largest partition and file sizes it supports are virtually unlimited by today’s standards. Awesome, it’s perfect! Almost… since exFAT is fairly new, it isn’t compatible with older Macs and PCs. Any Mac running 10.6.5 (Snow Leopard) or 10.7 (Lion) supports exFAT, while PCs running Windows XP SP3, Windows Vista SP1, and Windows 7 are compatible. If you know you’ll be using computers running updated versions of these operating systems, exFAT is the clear best choice.
Apple used drones, helicopters, and the International Space Station to film screensavers for the Apple TV, and there's a way to get them on your Mac. Apple tv screensaver for mac. To use the Apple TV screensaver on your Mac you first need to download the file containing the aerial footage and other videos. The screensaver is maintained by the developers John Coates and Guillame Louel and since it is open source everyone can use it for free!
External Hard Drive For Mac And Pc Simultaneously
Format a drive using Disk Utility on a Mac
- Launch Disk Utility (Applications > Utilities).
- Select your external hard drive or USB flash drive from the list on the left.
- Click on the Erase tab. Select the format – Mac OS Extended (HFS+), MS-DOS (FAT32), or exFAT – then name the drive.
- Click the Erase button and the drive will start formatting. Be aware that formatting a drive deletes all of the files on it, so back up anything important before completing this step.
External Hard Drive For Mac And Pc Interchangeable
Format a drive using Windows
Formatting External Hard Drive For Mac And Pc
- Go to Computer (or My Computer in Windows XP).
- Select your drive from the list and right-click on it. Choose Format from the contextual menu.
- A window will pop up where you can choose the format – NTFS, FAT32, or exFAT. Make sure the allocation unit size is set to default and type in a volume label.
- Click Start to format the drive.