This way, you can use the drive in between Mac OS, Windows and Linux freely. Three Options for Accessing NTFS Drives on MacRaspberry Pi SD Card Format. Any vaguely modern version of Windows, Mac OSX and Linux can read exFAT drives simply. Theres no real limit to the file (or filename) size on an exFAT drive. ExFAT is a more modern (2006+) FAT based file system designed to remove these limitations. However, if any of your video files are over 4 GB, you will need to use either exFAT or NTFS.But digital images, especially working files with lots of layers, can soon exceed this limit.Well, is there an external hard drive that could be shared between Mac and Windows PC? Of course, there is. How to Quickly Format External Hard Drive for Mac and PC without Losing DataAs we know, external hard drives are widely used to backup data or interchange files among different computers. Apple’s Experimental NTFS-Writing Support: Don’t Do This, Seriously The Best Free Third-Party Drivers: FUSE for macOS The Best Paid Third-Party Driver: Paragon NTFS for Mac As long as we format the external hard drive to one of these 2 file systems, it can be shared between Mac and Windows.Both FAT32 and exFAT have advantages and disadvantages.FAT32: FAT32 works with all versions of Windows, Mac OS, Linux, game consoles, etc.However, single files on a FAT32 drive can't be larger than 4GB. Similarly, Windows OS will ask us to format the HFS+ formatted drive when we connecting such a disk, let along edit files saved on HFS+ formatted hard disks unless we resort to third party programs.But luckily, there are file systems well supported by both Mac and Windows PC, and they are FAT32 (it might be called MS-DOS on Mac) and exFAT. However, when we connect a NTFS formatted disk to Mac, Mac OS X doesn't allow us to write files to the drive neither edit files, though it can read a NTFS drive. Why Need to Format External Hard Drive for Mac and PCTo put it simply, if you want to share external hard drive between Mac and PC, you need to format an external hard drive for Mac and PC.Currently, hard drives for Windows PC are always formatted with NTFS, while hard disks for Mac are formatted with HFS+.
Free Third-Party DriversFUSE for macOS is a free and open-source NTFS driver that can enable write support. MiniTool Partition Wizard is one representative. Paragon NTFS for Mac is such a driver.Besides, you can also use the paid third-party file system converters to convert NTFS to FAT32 or exFAT which are compatible with both Mac and PC. They work well and they have better performance than the free solutions which will be mentioned in the following part. Three Options for Accessing NTFS Drives on Mac Paid Third-Party DriversSome paid third-party NTFS drivers for Mac can be used to access NTFS drives on Mac. Of course, there is free partition manager that can help create a FAT32 volume up to 2TB, which also functions correctly.ExFAT: exFAT has very large file size and partition size limits, which means it's a good idea to format your external hard drive to exFAT.Nevertheless, a lot of users complained that exFAT is slow, and they highly suggest using FAT32 if you can avoid file size constraints. Mac os x blocking torrent downloadsFor example, it had corrupted data before. Usually, it is disabled by default and needs some messing around in the Mac terminal to enable it.It doesn’t work properly all the time and could lead to potential issues with your NTFS file system. Apple’s Experimental NTFS-Write SupportThe Mac OS has an experimental support for writing to NTFS drives. And the automatically mounting NTFS partitions in read-write mode can be a security risk for your Mac computer. Additionally, it can mount partitions automatically and safely. If you want to use it all the time, you need to pay for it.With it, you don’t have to fiddle with terminal commands to mount partitions manually. It offers a 10-day free trial. Drive Format That Works And Windows Fat Software And InputThen, you can share external hard drive between Mac and PCHowever, if you want to convert NTFS to exFAT to make external hard drive compatible with Mac and PC, 3 steps are required.Step 1: Transfer Data out from External Hard DriveYou can choose to copy and paste those files to other external devices or internal hard disk of Windows, but it will cost much time. If there is more than one NTFS partition, convert all of them one by one.At last, click " Apply" button to make the change executed.When MiniTool Partition Wizard shows it applies the change successfully, the original NTFS will finally become a FAT32 partition.By this way, you can easily format an external hard drive for Mac and PC without losing any data. Then, you can open the software and input the license key to the pop-out window to get its Professional Edition.Step 2: Convert NTFS to FAT32 with This SoftwareAfter running the program successfully, we can see its main interface as follows:Here, please select the NTFS partition of external hard drive and choose " Convert NTFS to FAT" feature from the left action pane. If you are a personal user, you can try its Professional Edition.Download this software to your computer. How to Convert NTFS to FAT32 or exFAT Without Data LossTo format hard drive for Mac and Windows without data loss, we suggest using MiniTool Partition Wizard and its " Convert NTFS to FATS32" function. To keep it safe, you can choose this best NTFS/HFS+ to FAT/exFAT converter: MiniTool Partition Wizard. After that, you should click " Apply" to keep this change.Secondly, the target partition will become unallocated. Then, choose the target partition and click " Delete Partition" from the left action pane. Just open the software to enter its main interface. However, if there is more than one NTFS partition, view Copy Disk to get specific operations.Step 2: Create exFAT Partition with MiniTool Partition WizardThe Free Edition of this software also enables you to do this job.Firstly, you need to delete the partition by using this software. Then, please click on " Apply" to save these changes.Finally, an exFAT partition will be created on your external hard disk so that it could be shared between Mac and Windows PCStep 3: Transfer Data back to External DriveIf you want to share files that you have backed up between Mac and PC, now please transfer these files back to external hard drive. After that, please click on " OK".Fourthly, you will go back to the main interface. At the same time, you can also set some other parameters for this partition, including " Partition Label", " Drive Letter", " Size And Location". Here, you can choose " exFAT" from the " File System" setting option. That is because there are cases reporting FAT32 (MS-DOS) or exFAT partitions created on Mac did not work well on Windows.Please skip to Solution 1: Format External Hard Drive to FAT32 to get steps to create a FAT32 partitions or go back to Step 2: Create exFAT Partition with MiniTool Partition Wizard to get operations to create an exFAT partition. Of course, if you have a backup already, ignore this step.Step 2: Create a FAT32 or exFAT Partition on Windows PCSome people may ask why create such partitions on Windows rather than Mac.
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