To format a hard drive for compatibility of both Mac and windows you can use FAT32 format which has both read/write capability on win/Mac respectively. Although we know its limitation of 4gb file size only. Windows uses NTFS, and Mac OS uses HFS, these file systems are not compatible with each other. However there is a simple solution – you can format the drive to FAT32 or exFAT that performs better than FAT32. In the resulut, your external hard drive will work just fine with Mac and Windows.
So, you just bought an external hard drive or a portable SSD and wanted to use it on your Mac. But somehow, macOS doesn’t allow you to write data to the drive.
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That’s all because it’s been initialized with Windows NT File System (NTFS), which is primarily for PCs. Apple Mac machines support a different file system.
In this post, I’m going to show you how to format your external drive for a Mac compatible file system i.e. Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Just follow this easy step-by-step guide and you’re all set.
Important note: If you have useful files stored on the external drive, be sure to copy or transfer them to another safe place prior to formatting. The operation will erase all data and your files will be gone for good. You could use a recovery program like Data Rescue to retrieve them, but the odds of recovery vary.
Pro tip: If your external drive has a large volume, like mine – a 2TB Seagate Expansion. I highly recommend you also create multiple partitions. I’ll also show you how to do that below.
Most External Hard Drives Are Initiated with NTFS
During the last several years, I’ve used several removable drives, including a 500GB WD My Passport, 32GB Lexar flash drive, and a few others.
Three weeks ago, I bought a brand new 2TB Seagate Expansion to backup my MacBook Pro before I updated to the latest macOS, 10.13 High Sierra (also see those High Sierra issues I encountered).
When I connected the Seagate to my Mac, the drive icon showed up like this.
When I opened it, the default content was all there. Since I wanted to use it on Mac, I clicked the blue logo with the text “Start_Here-Mac”.
It brought me to a webpage on Seagate’s site, where it clearly indicated the drive was initially set up to work with a Windows PC. If I wanted to use it with Mac OS or Time Machine backup (which is my intent), I’ll need to format the drive for my Mac.
I then right-clicked the external drive icon on Mac desktop > Get Info. It showed this format:
Format: Windows NT File System (NTFS)
What is NTFS? I’m not going to explain here; you can read more on Wikipedia. The problem is that on macOS, you can’t work with files saved on an NTFS drive unless you use a paid app Paragon NTFS for Mac.
How to Format an External Drive to Work with Mac (from NTFS to Mac OS Extended)?
Note: The tutorial and screenshots below are based on macOS Sierra 10.12.5. They might be different if your Mac has a different version.
Step 1: Open Disk Utility.
The quickest way to do this is a simple Spotlight search (click the search icon on the upper right corner), or go to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.
Step 2: Highlight your external drive and click “Erase”.
Make sure your drive is connected. It should show up on the left panel under “External”. Select that disk and click the “Erase” button, the one highlighted in red in the screenshot below.
Step 3: Select “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)” in Format.
A new window will pop up asking which file system you’d like to format the external drive to. By default, it’s the Windows NT File System (NTFS). Select the one shown below.
Pro tip: If you want to use the external drive for both Mac and PC, you can also select “ExFAT”. Learn more about the differences between these file systems from this thread.
By the way, you can also rename your external drive.
Step 4: Wait until the erasing process is complete.
For me, it took less than a minute to format my 2TB Seagate Expansion.
You can also check to see if the format was successful. Right-click on the icon for your external drive on Mac desktop, then select “Get Info”. Under “Format”, you should see text like this:
Congratulations! Now your external drive has been formatted to be fully compatible with Apple MacOS, and you can edit, read, and write files to it as you want.
How to Partition an External Hard Drive on Mac
If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive (in fact, you should for better file organization), here’s a step-by-step guide:
Step 1: Highlight your drive and click “Partition” in Disk Utility.
Open the Disk Utility app and highlight your external hard drive. Make sure you select the disk icon right under “External”. If you select the one below it, the Partition option will be greyed out and become unclickable.
Step 2: Add partitions and allocate volume for each one.
After clicking “Partition”, you’ll see this window. Located on the left is a big blue circle with the name of your external drive together with its volume size. What you need to do next is click the add “+” button to increase the number of partitions on your external disk. Then allocate the desired volume to each partition. You can do that by clicking the small white circle and dragging it around.
After that, you can rename each partition and define a file system for it.
Step 3: Confirm your operation.
Once you hit “Apply”, a new window pops up asking for your confirmation. Take a few seconds to read the text description to make sure it reflects what you intend to do, then click the “Partition” button to continue.
Step 4: Wait until it says “Operation successful.”
To check whether the operation is really successful, go to your Mac desktop. You should see multiple disk icons show up. I chose to create two partitions on my Seagate Expansion — one for backup, the other for personal use. You can find more info in this post: How to Backup Mac to an External Hard Drive.
That wraps up this tutorial article. I hope you find it helpful. As always, let me know if you have any issues during the formatting or partitioning process.
By Juno | Posted to NTFS for Mac, updated on August 6th, 2019 |
With an external hard drive, you can efficiently transfer large files between computers running the same operating system type. However, it could be a totally different story if you plan to do this between a Mac and a PC. That's because, the two platforms have their specific file systems by default: Windows uses NTFS, while Mac use HFS+ or APFS. Out of the box, Windows can't read or write to HFS+/APFS and Macs can't write to NTFS drives.
Though the default file system is really a hurdle to use one external hard drive between Windows and Mac, there're still file systems that can connect the two worlds, i.e. FAT32 and exFAT. Thus, in order to use the same external hard drive on both Macs and PCs, you can format your external hard drive and make it compatible with both macOS and Windows OS.
But before that, it will be helpful if you know some background information and do some preparations.
- 2.1 How to format an external hard drive in macOS?
- 2.2 How to format an external hard drive in Windows?
- 2.3 How to partition an external hard drive for Mac and Windows PC?
Understand common file systems
Whether you're transferring files between Windows and Mac using external hard drives, or other portable storage devices like USB flash drives or SD cards, you'll be told about 3 file systems: FAT32, exFAT and NTFS. But do you know what is the difference between them?
You could use an external hard drive for Mac, such as Seagate Backup Plus drives for Mac and WD my passport for Mac to back up your files, but do you know what makes a hard drive exclusive for Mac is not the disk itself but the file system of this disk?
To answer the questions above and broaden your mind, this part will have a brief introduction to some common file systems.
FAT32
Pros: It can universally work with all versions of Mac, Windows, Linux, game devices, as well as other devices supporting a USB port.
Cons: FAT32 comes with file size limits and drive partition limits. It doesn't support files larger than 4GB, drive partition larger than 32GB on Windows, or drive partition larger than 2TB on macOS.
So FAT32 is commonly used in floppy disks, SD memory cards, USB flash drives as well as many portable and embedded devices. Also, FAT is the standard file system for digital cameras.
exFAT
Pros: The largest partition and file sizes it supported are nearly unlimited by today's standards.
Cons: exFAT file system is not compatible with older operating systems. It should be used in macOS 10.6.5 or newer, and PC need to be Windows Vista SP1, Windows 7 or newer.
As most users have upgraded operating system, it is actually quite easy to meet to lowest operating system requirements of exFAT. So exFAT can be a very good option to share external hard drive between macOS and Windows. Similarly, it also optimized for flash memory drives such as USB flash drives and SD cards. It can be easily implemented in firmware that has low memory and low power requirements, such as cameras, mobile phones, media players, etc.
NTFS
https://yqddnx.weebly.com/office-for-mac.html. Pros: It is an improvement for FAT32, and it is used as the default file system of Windows system hard drive due to its improved performance, reliability, and disk space use.
Cons: You can't write to NTFS drives in macOS and the disabled-by-default write support for NTFS in macOS is unstable.
Mac OS Extended (HFS+)
Pros: It is the primary file system of Apple computers with the 1998 release of Mac OS 8.1. It also frequently used as Time Machine backup external hard drives of WD, Seagate, etc.
Cons: If HFS+ format volume is connected to a computer running Mac OS 8.0 or earlier, the files will not be visible or accessible.
APFS
Pros: The proprietary file system for macOS High Sierra (10.13), macOS Mojave (10.14), and macOS Catalina (10.15). It is optimized for flash drives and SSD with a primary focus on encryption.
Cons: Because APFS has no support for hard links to directories while Time Machine still relies on them, APFS is not yet a good option for backup volumes for Mac.
Format Hard Drive For Mac And Windows
Format external hard drives to make it compatible with both Mac and PC
Though you can't use APFS/HFS+ on Windows PCs nor write to NTFS on Macs by default, there're still file systems that bridge the two worlds, i.e. FAT32 and exFAT. Yes! You can format your external hard drives with FAT32 or exFAT to make it compatible with both Macs and Windows PCs, .
Warning: Formatting a disk or a partition will erase data on this drive. Make sure you have a copy of data backup in hand if you have important files on this external hard drive. However, if you have formatted this drive and are encountering data loss, you can recover data from formatted external hard drive with iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery.
How to format an external hard drive in macOS?
If you are using an APFS/HFS+ formatted hard drive on Mac right now, and you want to use it on Windows PC as well, you can use the method below to format your external hard drive with exFAT/FAT32. Also, if you plug in an NTFS formatted drive to your Mac and you have a copy of data backup, then you can follow the following steps to format your external hard drive for both Mac and PC without worrying data loss.
1. Click on Launchpad at the dock of your Mac, choose Other in the menu, and then select Disk Utility to open.
2. Select this external hard drive on the left part of the window.
3. Click the Erase on the top of the window.
4. Give a name to this disk, choose MS-DOS (FAT) or exFAT in the context menu, then choose a scheme.
Tips: You can choose FAT when you need maximum compatibility with the widest range of devices and if you don't have any files larger than 4 GB. exFAT would be advised if your external hard drive is larger than 2TB. And for better performance, you can choose Guide Partition Map scheme if your disk or partition is larger than 1TB.
5. Click Erase to proceed with this formatting process.
After you format this external hard drive to FAT32 or exFAT, you'll be able to use this disk both on Mac and PC seamlessly.
How to format an external hard drive in Windows?
You can also format your drive on Windows computers by following the steps.
1. Click on This PC/My Computer at your desktop.
2. Connect your external hard drive to your PC, and then select this drive from the list and right-click on it.
Sd Card Format For Windows And Mac
3. Choose Format from the contextual menu.
4. Choose format (FAT32 or exFAT), and then set format information (allocation unit size, volume label and format option).
Tips: FAT32 would be better if the partition of your external hard drive is less than 32 GB .
5. Check Perform a quick format and click OK to format the external hard drive.
In Windows OS, you can also format your drive in Disk Management by typing 'disk management' in Windows search or going to Control Panel >Administrative Tools >Create and format hard disk partitions.
How to partition an external hard drive for Mac and Windows PC?
Except for having the whole external hard drive formatted, you can also split this disk with two partitions. One is formatted with the file system that is compatible with macOS, another partition is compatible with Windows conversely. By this means, you can use all the advantages each format has on the respective system.
Warning: Still, you need to back up files on this drive before you begin to create two separate partitions to work for Mac and Windows PC.
Here are the steps to do this, which is a little tricky.
Step 1: Connect your external hard drive to your Mac, and then launch Disk Utility.
Step 2: Click on the drive name in the left sidebar, and then click on Partition at the top.
Step 3: Select Partition in the pop-up menu and click on the add button '+' to create another partition.
Step 4: Click on the untitled half of the pie, give it a name, choose exFAT format, and decide the size according to your need.
Step 5: Click on Apply and this partition will be created.
Step 6: Then click on another partition and format it with Mac OS Extended, and give it a name like 'Mac' for your convenience.
After saving all these changes above, there will be two partitions on your external hard drive. One is formatted with exFAT, and another is HFS+. Then, you need to eject this drive and connect it to a Windows computer, so that you can convert exFAT into NTFS.
Step 1: Search for Disk Management and open it. Then you will find this external hard drive at the lower right column.
Step 2: Right-click the Windows exFAT partition and select Format. Choose NTFS and check 'Quick format' box.
Step 3: Click OK and complete the format process.
By creating two separate partitions, you can use this external hard drive on both Mac and Windows. You won't be able to write to the Mac partition from your Windows computer, and vice versa. Thus, it's a good solution for people who need to swap between two operating systems but with separate work.
Make external hard drives for Mac and PC interchangeable without formatting
NTFS and HFS+ file systems are hassles for users who need to use the same external hard drive on both Mac and Windows. NTFS drive will be read-only on Mac and you can't write to this drive normally in this case. But formatting is not feasible as it includes several steps and you will lose data if you didn't back up your files.
Then, can you solve external hard drive read-only without formatting?
Definitely! If you want to use NTFS formatted external hard drives on Mac, there is a great software called iBoysoft NTFS for Mac that might be helpful.
iBoysoft NTFS for Mac - professional NTFS driver for Mac
iBoysoft NTFS for Mac is a professional NTFS for Mac software, which can automatically mount NTFS drives in read-write mode on Mac. It supports macOS Catalina 10.15/Mojave 10.14/High Sierra 10.13/Sierra 10.12 and Mac OS X El Capitan 10.11/Yosemite 10.10/Mavericks 10.9/Mountain Lion 10.8. With this useful tool, you'll have full access to NTFS drives on Mac and make your external hard drive interchangeable between Macs and PCs without formatting. Also, you can mount and unmount NTFS drives from the Mac menu bar with advanced and optimized options.
What's more, iBoysoft NTFS for Mac is also a handy tool to manage NTFS external drives. You can use it to easily mount, unmount, repair, erase NTFS external hard drives, USB flash drives, SD cards, memory cards, CF cards, pen drives, etc. on Mac.
Tutorial to mount NTFS external hard drive on macOS with read-write mode with iBoysoft NTFS for Mac
Step 1: Free download, install, and launch iBoysoft NTFS for Mac on your computer.
Step 2: Connect your NTFS external hard drive to Mac, and iBoysoft NTFS for Mac will automatically mount it.
Best Format For Windows And Mac
Step 3: Write to NTFS external hard drive after the disk has been mounted in read-write mode successfully.
If you want to use HFS+ or APFS formatted external hard drives on Windows, you can also attempt to install HFS+ for Windows software or APFS for Windows software on your PC to get read and write access to this external hard drive.
Conclusion
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To sum up, it is easy to format an external hard drive for both Mac and Windows PC. You can either choose to format the whole disk as exFAT/FAT, or you can create two separate partitions of HFS+ and NTFS if you prefer. But compared with formatting, an NTFS for Mac driver like iBoysoft NTFS for Mac is a better and feasible solution.