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1. #What hard drive format for mac and windows files how to#
2. #What hard drive format for mac and windows files mac os x#
3. #What hard drive format for mac and windows files mac osx#

Mac OS X uses the HFS Plus file system, while Windows uses the NTFS file system. First and foremost, you need to decide which file system to use.

Regardless of why you want to format your hard drive, there are some considerations to be made before you begin.

Of course, you may also just want to quickly delete the content of an entire hard drive.

#What hard drive format for mac and windows files how to#

Data fragmentation remains an issue even in the era of mobile devices, and in some cases formatting is the fastest way how to solve it. Optimization is another good reason for hard drive formatting. When you purchase a brand-new hard drive, there’s no guarantee that it will be pre-formatted from the factory, nor is there any guarantee that it will come with the right file system. Even though most people associate formatting with system installation, there are many other reasons why you might want to format your hard drive.

#What hard drive format for mac and windows files mac osx#

Any vaguely modern version of Windows, Mac OSX and Linux can read exFAT drives simply.ĮxFAT should be your default choice for all external storage you plan to use for sharing files.Both Mac OS X and Windows allow users to format their hard drives using built-in utilities. There's no real limit to the file (or filename) size on an exFAT drive. But digital images, especially working files with lots of layers, can soon exceed this limit.ĮxFAT is a more modern (2006+) FAT based file system designed to remove these limitations. If you're sure you can live with these limitations then you're fine to use FAT32. Pretty much everything will read a FAT32 drive - but it is very old at this point, and has annoying limitations - and the most likely one you're going to hit is a maximum file size limitation of 4GB. As long as you do that properly, every time, you should have no issues.įAT32 is really the most compatible format of all (and the default format USB keys are formatted with). These are less robust file systems - so you need to take more care when e.g. The long answer is the same - just with reasons!įAT32 and exFAT are the remaining options you're given once you rule out the more 'native' file systems as above. The short answer is: use exFAT for all external storage devices you will be using to share files. We do have software here to read Mac formatted disks if necessary, but it's never as easy and reliable as a properly formatted external drive. This is in fact more relevant a question in recent times than years previous as there's a strong momentum back to PCs from Macs of late! Image Science is a Windows house, because Windows printer drivers and colour management have proven vastly more reliable over the last 15 years than the ever changing Mac system. So the question then becomes - how best to do this? What is the best modern format to use to reliably store and transfer files between systems - whatever operating system they may be running, be it PC, Mac, or Linux? However, we also generate large files here as part of our scanning service, and thanks to the pathetic state of what passes as internet in this country, a lot of people do still use external hard drives and of course USB keys to share files with us. In recent years, most files have begun to arrive electronically and we have a fast and reliable file upload tool you can use to send us files. At Image Science, we deal with files and storage devices all day every day.