So, after realizing both of their distinctions, which one to choose mostly depends on your own needs. If your hard drive is less than 2TB, and you won’t save 4GB+ single file onto it, the FAT32 is a great choice. However, it also has significant defects: Single file size is limited to 4GB and partition capacity can not go over 2TB. Besides Mac and Windows, it also supports Linux and Android which makes it much more functional.

It's compatible with quite a number of devices such as DVD players, game consoles like PS3. In this case, it seems you'll need a safer alternative.Īs for FAT32, its very good compatibility sets it apart from other counterparts. However, it suffers from a defect: The file system of exFAT is easier to be corrupted. Then what file system is compatible with those two different platforms? In fact, there're 2 different file systems you can choose from: exFAT and FAT32.Īs for exFAT, it supports partition capacity larger than 2TB and a single file over 4GB. To make any portable hard drive such as Seagate, Western Digital, etc to work with both Mac and Windows computer, we need to format it to a proper file system. Which file system is compatible with Mac and Windows? So, to make a portable hard drive work well on both Mac and PC, we need to find out proper file systems that are compatible with those 2 platforms and format your hard drive into any of these file systems. Windows uses NTFS and FAT32 while Mac uses HFS and they’re incompatible with each other. However, it’s not just a case of formatting if you want to use your hard drive on both Mac and PC when these 2 platforms use different file systems. And only after formatted, your computer can work normally. Without this step, your computer will have no idea where to write or read. Usually, when we use a new hard drive for the first time, no matter it's portable or non-portable, it can not be directly put into use for it has to be initialized and formatted first, like giving it fresh new birth. How to format portable hard drive for Mac and PC?

Disk utility format usb for mac and pc