Which format for mac external hard drive

This makes it unsuitable for most modern purposes. Ideally, the best file format is the one that covers your needs across all the platforms you use. Here's how to partition an external hard drive for Time Machine on your Mac so you can store other files too. With his M. Writing and teaching others is always his passion.

He now writes about technology and make it digestible for readers who don't understand it well. Share Share Tweet Email. Rahul Saigal Articles Published. NTFS has long been the default Windows file format, which makes it an incredibly useful choice if your primary machine runs any Windows operating system. So, if you need more workflow versatility than this one-way transfer allows, consider another format such as APFS for Mac-first applications or exFAT for true interchangeability.

Designed with flash media in mind, APFS is the new default drive format and a great option for security and speed—particularly with increasingly popular solid state drives SSDs. A very versatile format, exFAT hard drives can be used interchangeably on many Mac and Windows operating systems without the limitations to partition size and file size. Or for a photographer who needs to shuttle files between a Windows workstation and a Mac.

The very definition of an oldie but a goodie, FAT32 may be approaching its 25 th birthday but it has still got some useful life left for a very specific application.

One hurdle you'll face is that, by default, these platforms use different filesystems. Here's how. You can format the drive from either Mac or Windows. However, if you want to use part of the drive for OS X's Time Machine backups, you should do this from the Mac, since there's an extra step to make the drive compatible for Time Machine. Open Disk Utility.