- #Best way to format external drive for mac how to#
- #Best way to format external drive for mac mac os#
We'll see if that works I have a new 3T drive arriving this week and I haven't even thought about how I'll be formatting it. I also may partition a drive or two with one portion being exFat, one FAT32, and one HFS. I have umpteen backups (even when I travel) so a little corruption is not going to kill me. I now have a couple of drives (and a couple of USBs) running exFAT and it seems okay. Yes, the reason is to be able to access larger files on both Windows and Mac machines. Thanks I had forgotten about this thread. Note: I am using Mavericks and Yosemite (Beta 3) machines, and have Win7 computers in boxes somewhere. I'm in the process of formatting one of them to exFat as I'm writing this. Note: I have a couple of external drives partitioned so that they have Fat32 and NTFS, but this is a waste of space in a couple of ways and must use third-party software on Macs to work with the NTFS files, which most people don't have.
I guess the same question should be posed about USB "sticks " I'd like to switch a couple of them to exFat as well, as I often must give large video files to others and don't like having to carry a small portable HD around just to do that.
#Best way to format external drive for mac how to#
I have a couple more HDs coming this week and am trying to decide how to format them. Yes, I could have formatted a drive to Mac OS, but then couldn't have transferred the file to those I met with Windows machines. I reformatted that drive last week in North Korea when I realized that a 28 minute video clip that I had recorded couldn't be backed up to either of the 2 portable drives I had taken, leaving me with only two copies of the file - one still on the card, and another on the computer I took along (MB Air) if I hadn't reformatted one of the other drives. Of course, with video and other files that we encounter now, Fat32 is no longer acceptable I have one new HD that I formatted with exFat and it works fine with my Macs but I haven't tried it on Windows machines. I also have Fat32 drives for when I must share files with Windows machines, mine and others.
Like many of us, I have external drives formatted in MacOS for my own use, Time Machine, etc.
The reason that I'm asking is that I remember people recommending not using exFat (formatted by a Mac) in the past, but that was at least 2 or 3 years ago, probably longer.
#Best way to format external drive for mac mac os#
Any reason not to format an external drive with exFat? I am referring to using the disk utility in Mac OS to do the formatting.