It supports a single file that is larger than 4GB.But you need to make sure a single file in it is no larger than 4GB. The FAT file system is a good choice for removable drives due to its good compatibility.
BEST DISK FORMAT FOR MAC AND PC WINDOWS
Modern versions of Windows can’t be installed to a drive that is formatted with a FAT32 file system.It doesn’t support a FAT32 partition that is larger than 8 TB (Windows only recognizes 2TB).It doesn’t support a single file that is larger than 4GB.It is compatible with removable thumb drives, USB flash drives, pen drives, and other USB interface-based storage devices.It is compatible with all versions of Windows and Mac.exFATīoth FAT and exFAT have their advantages and disadvantages. If you want to use a thumb drive, USB drive, pen drive, or flash drive on both Windows and Mac, you can format the drive to FAT or exFAT. Which Is the Best Format of a Thumb Drive for both Windows and Mac? We can see that FAT and exFAT can work on both Windows and Mac. MacOS supports the following file systems: Windows OS supports the following file systems:
Then, you can the best file system for a thumb drive on both Mac and PC. Now, let’s look at which files systems can be used on Windows and which file systems can run on Mac. What Format of Flash Drive Works on both Windows and Mac?īefore you format a thumb drive for Mac and PC, you need to know which file systems can work on these two operating systems. In a situation like this, you need to format your thumb drive to a suitable format to make it can be read and written on both Windows and Mac.Īll in all, when you want to use your thumb drive on Windows and Mac, you need to format the drive to a suitable file system that is compatible with both of these two operating systems. Perhaps, your computer at home runs macOS but other computers run Windows-based operating systems or vice versa. You use a thumb drive to store files to use them on your computer at home and in your computer/school/local library. Why Do You Need to Format a Thumb Drive for Mac and PC?
BEST DISK FORMAT FOR MAC AND PC HOW TO
Hopefully you now know which options above to pick from the list of best formats for external hard drives, which can save your bacon when making the wrong choice can lead to a situation where an external disk just won’t plug-and-play. Picking the wrong one can turn into a real pain when you have to backup and reformat an entire drive because it won’t work for its intended purpose. Picking a format for your external drive can be pretty confusing. In fact, most devices have an internal SD card formatting routine, so we recommend you simply let the intended device format the card. exFAT is still a good choice if your DSLR (for example) supports it, but follow the manufacturer’s recommendation. With SD cards, your choice should be entirely driven by which formats the devices you use support. However, that’s set to change in the future. Of course, if you’re also going to use your thumb drive on your current Linux machine, exFAT won’t work at the time of writing. Especially if you also want to use your thumb drive with iPads, iPhones and Macs.įAT32 is a fallback if you want to use your thumb drive with older devices that don’t support exFAT. Which means you may want to use large files, such as HD video files, on your thumb drive. With the fairly cheap yet large flash drives we have today, there’s some overlap in the use cases for thumb drives and external hard drives. SD cards and USB thumb drives are still an important part of our digital lives, so which formats should you pick? The choice for the best format for external hard drives involves different considerations compared to other forms of external storage.
Unfortunately, Linux does not yet have support for exFAT, but that is reportedly set to change with the release of Kernel 5.4. The most compatible option is FAT32, but as we mentioned above it has a hard 4GB limit on file sizes.
However, Linux supports NTFS, which makes for a decent go-between if you have both Windows and Linux machines. Linux has its own proprietary EXT formats and if you are only going to use your external drive with a Linux machine, you can safely go ahead and pick that format. Linux distributions such as Ubuntu Linux are becoming more popular by the day, but are still relatively niche overall.
0 kommentar(er)
