Format for usb for mac and pc how to#
Format for usb for mac and pc mac osx#
Format for usb for mac and pc drivers#

How to Format a Drive for Mac and Windows PC Compatibility? In this article, we are going to introduce you with the entire process in few simple guidelines. It is just a matter of few minutes to do this. And if you are going to use Mac and Windows PC frequently, you will find this as very useful as any data, files, media files stored on the drive can be easily accessible from any operating system. Well, you can format the drive and make it as excellent cross-platform compatible to work with both Windows and Mac. And they are incompatible with each other! Now, the question is how to make hard drive compatible with Mac and PCs? While Windows uses NTFS file system, Mac hard drives are formatted with HFS file system. The irony is that, by default, Windows and Mac use different file systems.

Format for usb for mac and pc 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.Make your hard disk or USB flash drive compatible to both Mac and Windows PCs using this easy step by step guide. 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.

Format for usb for mac and pc drivers#

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.