Formatting a drive to exfat for mac

The duration of the process is based on the external drives total storage and rpm. If given a choice, the two common modes are ntfs and fat32. I can find the hark disk in disk utility with the correct name but the harddisk name is greyed and do not allow me to. Fat32 and ntfs are the most common formats, but whats the difference. For instance, is the hard drive internal or external.

This is a commonly required task before an sd card or micro sd card can be used as a storage medium for another electronic device, or even to remove any data stored on the sd card. Go to applicationsutilities and launch disk utility. Video showing how to format drive for mac and windows computers. Open disk utility and select the hard drive which you want to format on the lefthand side you will see your external hard drive icon if connected. How to reformat an external hard drive without losing your data. You should go ahead and format your storage drive with exfat.

It formats partition to exfat no matter the partition is on external drive, usb stick, sd card, pen drive, or internal hard drive system drive is an exception in windows 10 as well as windows 8. Disk utility on mac supports several file system formats. This is a commonly required task before an sd card or micro sd card can be used as a storage medium for another electronic device, or even to. File system formats available in disk utility on mac apple. Slack is the unused portion of a cluster or allocation unit size. Aomei partition assistant standard is a free exfat formatting utility you wont want to miss in windows. How to format usb flash drive to fat32 on mac easily. Click the erase button and the drive will start formatting. Turn on your macintosh notebook computer or desktop system and login.

How you format a mac hard drive is entirely dependent on what kind of drive you plan on formatting. Heres how to format a drive if you are planning to use it with a mac. I can find the hark disk in disk utility with the correct name but the harddisk name is. Format a usb drive as exfat for mac and windows compatibility. Heres how to correctly format the drive to work on both. This will format the drive as exfat format and your drive is now compatible with both platforms. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac laptop mag. Before you begin formatting a flash drive on a mac, you should first consider which format you are going to use. The formatting process duration depends on size and type of the drive. Give the drive a descriptive name and leave the default settings.

Mar 12, 2018 mac os journaled is the formatting option for mac and ntfs or msdoc is the formatting option for pc. How to reformat an external hard drive without losing your. Exfat formatting is a file system that both your mac and a windows pc can see and read and write to. You have to set it up correctly before getting starting. Open the disk utility app and highlight your external hard drive. With exfat, you can store files of any size, and use it with any computer made in the last 20 years. A drive can be formatted with exfat using either a windows or a mac computer. How to format external hard drives for mac and windows. Whether you are trying to backup mac to an external hard drive, wipe out any personal information and sell the computer, or even use a new operating system, you need to format the hard drive on your mac or pc. If you want to use a different file system on your usb drive, youll need to format it. Tuxera leads the way in storage and networking technologies which allow data sharing across any device or operating system. For pc and mac compatibility, select exfat format and master boot record scheme.

How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. But this was a mac formatted partition to begin with. It appears the issue has since been fixed and disks. How can i reformat my external hard drive without losing data. At this time, a couple of formatting options available. You have options when it comes to formatting a usb drive for use in a pc.

If you want to transfer files from a mac to windows pc and vice versa using an external portable hard drive then you have to have the external drive formatted in a file system both oss can read. Format wd elements for mac and pc have your drive for both. It is possible to reformat the drive and keep your files by formatting your drive and then using a data recovery tool to restore your information. What is the best allocation unit size for exfat format. From what i understand, windows doesnt always like the way macs do the formatting on some larger drives, though, so give it a try and if your windows machines dont like it. Click on the usb drive name in disk utility app and click restore button displayed on the top menu. To format a drive on a mac, youll need the builtin disk utility application. Although macos is generally much safer than windows, this does not mean that your mac cannot be exposed to viruses. Apr 17, 2018 hi, i have a 10tb g drive usb not usbc harddisk and i have formatted it to exfat via a window 7 pc.

Essentially, its a file system thats both readable and writable on any modern mac or windows machine sorry, leopard users. Plug the disk into a windows vista sp1 or windows 7 computer. Apple file system apfs apple file system apfs, the default file system for mac computers using macos 10. Format external hdd for mac and windows exfat partition hdd. Formatting a usb drive on a mac is a simple but effective way to delete them. How to format drive with compatible file system for mac and. Finally, when all preferences are set, click the erase button. Mac os x sierra open disk utility and click the drive you want to format. Once disk utility is open youll see the list of available drives on the left. How to format drive with compatible file system for mac. How to format a drive for mac and pc compatibility macyourself.

In the screenshot below, the drive is formatted with the exfat file system. Format your external drive with exfat for both mac and. How to format usb to fat32ntfsexfat on windows and mac. Dec 29, 2015 the instructions below are for windows 10, but other versions of windows from windows 7 and up can also format an external drive as exfat for use with mac as well. Now enter the name for the external drive which will be used after formatting and also select exfat for format option and click on the erase. Unlike fat32, exfat doesnt have a maximum file limit. Jul 16, 20 when you have a new hard drive, or when youre reinstalling windows, the os may ask you to format the drive. I will leave windows instructions below for the benefit of windows users. At the time of the original posting in 2011, there were some problems getting a mac formatted exfat drive working with windows, it had trouble recognizing those drives. The following steps show you how to format your primary drive when all applications and your files are gone. Oct 16, 2019 although it can create a 2tb drive partition in macs, it still has the 4gb file limit. To format the primary drive the hard disk where the operating system resides you need to boot into the setup program on windows 7 or windows 10 and use it to format your drive.

Whether youre formatting an internal drive, external drive, usb flash drive, or sd card, windows gives you the choice of using three different file systems. If you want to format an external hard drive, you have to connect the external hard drive to your mac first. How to format your hard drive to exfat file system on windows. You can also open a finder window, select applications in the sidebar, and head to utilities disk utility. As you can see, exfat is the only file system that works with all versions of windows and macos and does not have any max filesize or partitionsize limits. Then your western digital external hard drive is ready to use on your mac and on your windows pc. Now in this interface, you will see a format option. Lacie mobile drive is preformatted exfat for compatibility with both mac and windows computers. Format a disk for windows computers in disk utility on mac. To format a hard drive on your mac, follow these instructions.

Formatting an sd card from a mac is simple and quick thanks to the disk utility application. This is a file system limitation that affects both macs and pcs, and the only workaround is to format the drive. Much like the previous version, exfat also works with both mac and windows operating systems. Use the exfat file system and never format your external. Format external hard drive for mac and pc with exfat. Click erase and from the format dropdown select exfat. Click go on the top tool bar, and select utilities. Now, exfat is the newer version of fat32, and it solves most of the problems with the previous format.

Select one of the format from dropdown menu and click erase to start formatting usb to fat or exfat on mac. The easiest way to do that is hit cmd and the spacebar at. To format the drive to work with both platforms you will need use a windows computer to format the disk as exfat. If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide. To sum up, it is easy to format an external hard drive for both mac and windows pc. Want to format a hard drive for mac and pc compatibility. Macyourself blog archive how to format a drive for mac and pc. In the file system list box, choose exfat, type in a volume label if you want, and. Simply follow any of the methods discussed in the article and successfully format your drive to exfat file system. Find out how to format an external drive or usb disk making the drive work with both windows pc and mac can read and write. Now your entire wd elements external hard drive is in a format both computers can use. If so, it would be better to purchase a ntfs driver and install it to your mac. To format external drive to file system compatible with mac and pc, connect the drive to your computer and follow the detailed steps given below take formatting hard drive to exfat in windows 7 for example.

Choosing the right format for your external hard drive b. Just select the one you want to format and click on the erase tab. Some people are asking for a way to format a hard drive for mac. May 29, 2018 to format external drive to file system compatible with mac and pc, connect the drive to your computer and follow the detailed steps given below take formatting hard drive to exfat in windows 7 for example. Almost since exfat is fairly new, it isnt compatible with older macs and pcs. Lacie mobile drive user manual optional formatting and. The good news is that formatting usb on mac is also as easy as on windows 10.

How to format an external hard drive for mac and pc. From what i understand, windows doesnt always like the way macs do the formatting on some larger drives, though, so give it a try and if your windows machines dont like it, just format the drive with windows. But, if for some reason you want to reformat your samsung t5. Sep 12, 2019 free exfat formatting tool for windows 10. Using an external drive between mac and windows computers can be a hassle, since you constantly have to reformat it to fit which computer youre using it. Oct 25, 2019 format samsung t5 for mac and windows. Fat32 has several limitations, including a 4 gb perfile limit. Rightclick on the drive you want to format, select format to see the list of configurations including file system. Better still, it can be read from and written to on any mac running mac os x snow leopard or later and on windows.

Mar 03, 2020 as you can see, exfat is the only file system that works with all versions of windows and macos and does not have any max filesize or partitionsize limits. I suspect the reason you want to use exfat is so that you can read and write to it for both windows and mac os x. First to format your wd elements external drive to mac os extended journaled file system. How to format hard drive for mac and windows and do partition for time machine backup. Again, formatting a drive will erase it completely, so make sure you have everything backed up that you want to keep. Highlight your drive and click partition in disk utility. If you have made the mistake of buying a flash drive they runs on a fat32 file format you dont have to discard it altogether.

Jul 05, 2017 rightclick or controlclick the drives icon in the finders sidebar or on your desktop and select get info. Dec, 2019 now enter the name for the external drive which will be used after formatting and also select exfat for format option and click on the erase. And in a few minutes your wd elements drive is exfat formatted ready for you to use on your mac and windows pc. From then on, that drive should work fantastically between mac and windows machines. Under file system box, select exfat for this drive. Select your external hard drive or usb flash drive from the list on the left.

How to format your hard drive to exfat file system on windows 10. Rightclick on the drive you want to format, click on format. Seagate backup plus hub user manual optional formatting. You can format the drive from either the mac or the windows machine. How to format external hard drives on a mac sweetwater. You can format an external drive in os x using disk utility and terminal. It wont work with linux unless you install linuxs exfat drivers, but for most people, exfat is just about. Hi, i have a 10tb gdrive usb not usbc harddisk and i have formatted it to exfat via a window 7 pc. Select exfat when formatting an external drive with windows.

Mac os journaled is the formatting option for mac and ntfs or msdoc is the. If you want to format your external hard drive to work with mac and windows computers, you should use exfat. On the web i have seen several warnings that if one formats an external hd for exfat using disk utility, it will still not work on windows. Be aware that formatting a drive deletes all of the files on it, so back up anything important before completing this step. Seagate backup plus is preformatted exfat for compatibility with both mac and windows computers. How to format your hard drive to exfat file system on. Formatting for exfat using disk utility apple community. Therefore, its perfect for a usb flash drive or external disk, especially when you need to save files more than 4gb in size.

Format your external drive to exfat file system through disk management if you want to format your internal or external drive to exfat file system, then the easiest way to do it is via disk management feature on windows. Typical windows recovery software depends on the file table to determine what files are on the drive and where to recover them from. The format dialog in windows doesnt explain the difference, so we will. Also, if your current hard drive is more than 5 years old, it probably is nearing the end of its service life and needs to be replaced. Dec 21, 2018 formatting an sd card from a mac is simple and quick thanks to the disk utility application. For a hard drive to be able to be read and written to in both a pc and mac computer, it must be formatted to exfat or fat32 file format. Please like, sub, share if you find this video helpful. Youll see the drives file system displayed to the right of format under the general heading. The below steps for formatting external drive is for windows 10 and also.

A hard disk drive will take longer to format than a flash drive. Gdrive usb formatted as exfat cannot be mounted in mac os. But compared with formatting, an ntfs for mac driver like iboysoft ntfs for mac is a better and feasible solution. Make tech easier may earn commission on products purchased through our. Insert the target usb drive into mac and you should see the drive name on finder sidebar. Choosing the right format for your external hard drive. That said, if you are using smaller file sizes fat32 can suffice. It depends upon how you use it, the size of the files, and how much slack space is tolerable to you. Or clear off everything off the drive you can do that on your mac. Apr 17, 2020 following this method properly will help you in formatting your drive to exfat file system with the help of diskpart. The maximum individual file size for exfat is 16 eb. Format external driveusb exfat in windows 10 in simple steps. Le format exfat est certes compatible avec windows et mac sans. Dec 25, 2016 so if you want your external hard drive to be backward compatible with both oss then you need to reformat it with fat32 or exfat.

If you want a hd that truly works on both platforms windows and os x you need to format it to exfat from within windows. In the main interface, right click the partition on that need. How to format a hard drive on windows or mac avast. Select disk utility, and then choose the drive to format. So if you want your external hard drive to be backward compatible with both oss then you need to reformat it with fat32 or exfat. You have to format the drive to exfat or fat32 if the burning process failed due to the wrong partition scheme.

But to get a hard drive to be compatible for both mac and pc, you have to choose the exfat. But, if you plan on using an external drive with both macs and pcs, you should format the disk with the exfat file system instead. However, fat32 is a legacy file system designed for low capacity hard drives and. Once you open the disk utility app, you can see all the drives on your mac are listed on the lefthand sidebar. I later on bought a new mac book pro with touch bar with macos high sierra 10.

We improve data handling, and storage lifetime and reliability in connected cars, smartphones, routers, and much more. After several minutes of waiting, the process will finish. While it may sound like a weightloss product from a latenight infomercial, exfat is a hard drive format that feels like the child of ntfs and fat32. File system formats available in disk utility on mac. Seagate backup plus hub user manual optional formatting and. How to format a flash drive to work on os x and windows. How to format a wd hard drive to exfat or fat32 file system. Now that you know which format to use, check out our guide on how to format your hard drive on a mac. How to format external hard drive to use on mac and pc.

The best format for your external hard drive the hellotech blog. Your wd elements drive will be on your macs desktop under the name you gave it. A hard disk, which is the storage device in your ex. Whats the difference between fat32, exfat, and ntfs. If your drive is an apfs format or a mac os format you can format your drive easily but if it is a fat32 format this may be a problem. How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac. Formatting your drive to exfat file system is very easy.