what to format external drive for mac 2019

And Windows PC need to be run on Windows Vista SP1, Windows 7 or newer. It can only work with MacOS 10.6.5 or newer. Besides, exFAT file system cannot work on some old operating systems. But some users complained that the exFAT is kinda slow, so the FAT32 is more recommended if you don’t care about the file size limitation. If you have to format large hard drive to FAT32 on Windows, you need to use a third-party partition manager.ĮxFAT has no realistic file-size (work with files as large as 16EB) or partition-size limits. But the single file on a FAT32 partition cannot be larger than 4GB, and the drive partition larger than 32GB cannot be formatted to FAT32 via Windows inbuilt tools, the drive cannot be over 2TB on MacOS. Which is better for Mac, exFAT, or FAT32?įAT32 works with all versions of Mac, Windows, Linux, gamed consoles, and other devices supporting a USB port.

So when you want to share a Samsung SSD drive between Windows and Mac, you need to format it a proper file system: FAT32 or exFAT, both of which work with macOS and Windows OS. Similarly, Mac cannot write files to NTFS drives or edit files, though it can read an NTFS drive. Windows cannot read or write to HFS+APFS and you will be asked to format the HFS+ drive once you connect it to Windows computer. Windows uses NTFS while Mac uses HFS+ or APFS. That’s because these two platforms have their specific file systems by default. To format Samsung 850 EVO or 860 EVO SSD or other hard drives for Mac on Windows computer could be a complicated task. How do I do that? It is not nearly as easy as it should be! So anyone have a great solution? Thanks! What type of format should I use for Mac? I have a Samsung solid-state 850 EVO drive that is NTFS formatted (Windows format), and now I want to reformat Samsung SSD for my Mac.

What to format external drive for mac 2019