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. Plug in your external HDD to the USB port of your computer then go to my computer find your external drive right-click it and select format. A new window will open, select the desired file system, keep the allocation unit size to default and check mark quick format (or it will take more time). Mar 25, 2014 HI. I've an external hard drive that I've used on Mac. Now, I'm trying to format it so that I can use it on PC instead of Mac. Unfortunately, I longer have a. Mar 22, 2012 The best ways to format an external drive for Windows and Mac. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with.
HomeHow ToMacOSHow to Format External Hard Drive for Mac and PC
You can format an external hard drive or USB so that it’s compatible for both your Mac and your Windows PC.
Without formatting the drive, you won’t be able to use your hard drive across different operating systems.
When you do format a hard drive, you’ll be able to access your data, media and files across any operating system.
This is extremely handy if you use a Mac and Windows operating system because you’ll be able to cross between both platforms and use your USB on anyone.
Remember that everything gets wiped off your hard drive when you format it, so you’ll need to back it up before you follow the steps down below.
Let’s get started…
Format Using MS-DOS FAT
The good thing about changing the format to FAT is that it works with all Macs and PCs, plus it uses less memory and it works faster.
The negatives of using Fat is that it can’t contain files bigger than 4GB.
To format your hard drive to FAT on Mac:
Format External Hard Drive For Mac And Pc Apple
Microsoft spider solitaire for mac. Remember that once you’ve formatted your hard drive, it will get wiped so you’ll need to backup the content on your external drive.
If you’re using a USB, you can simply drag its contents to a folder in your PCs hard drive and upload it back to your external hard drive once it has been formatted.
Format Using ExFAT
The good about formatting to exFAT is that it can handle unlimited file sizes and partition sizes.
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The cons of exFAT are that you can only use it with Mac OS X 10.6.5 or newer and your Windows PC needs to be either Windows Vista SP1 or Windows 7 and above.
Another problem with exFAT is that it’s extremely slow so moving files to this drive will take several minutes.
To Format using exFAT on Windows PC:
After formatting your drive, it’s now compatible for both your Mac and your Windows PC.
Typing apps for mac. Fat is the best option to use because you can use it on any OS, however, it can only contain 4GB which may not be enough for you.
If you have a new OS system, I’d definitely recommend exFAT because it can contain unlimited data.
Bottom Line
Going into Disk Unity then clicking the erase tab is the quickest way to format an external drive on your MAC.
If you have any questions or you’re having any problems, comment down below and I’ll help you further.
Format External Hard Drive For Both Mac And Pc
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