Format And Windows Hardrive Portable Hard Drives

Its possible, but tricky, to change the size of a partition later on in Windows and macOS; we recommend backing up the data on your drive before attempting the task, since its possible to wipe your drive doing this.

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Format And Windows Hardrive Portable Hard Drives

Justin Krajeski Share this post If you buy an external drivesuch as one of our recommended desktop hard drives, portable hard drives, or USB 3.0 flash drives you may need to reformat it to work with your operating system of choice, since different operating systems use different file systems to process data.

Although its true that any drive is compatible with both Windows and macOS, most drives come preformatted for Windows out of the box.

If you use Windows, chances are good that you wont need to reformat your external hard driveunless you buy it secondhand, or you plan on switching between operating systems, your drive should come ready to use.

If you use a Mac, the likelihood that youll have to reformat the drive is higher.

Choosing the right format for your drive Non-Linux computers can use four main file systems: NTFS, HFS, FAT32, and exFAT.

So what do those four file systems mean, and which one is right for you If you plan to use your drive for File History backups on a Windows computer, and you use only Windows, stick to NTFS (New Technology File System).

NTFS is native to Windows, and most hard drives are preformatted for this file system.

NTFS has huge file and partition size limits that you wont hit; that makes it a better choice than FAT32, which has a 4 GB size limit per file.

If you plan to use your drive for Time Machine backups on a Mac, and you use only macOS, use HFS (Hierarchical File System Plus, or macOS Extended).

A drive formatted this way will not mount on a Windows computer without additional software.

Like NTFS, the HFS file system has file and partition size limits that are much bigger and more suitable for modern use than those of FAT32.

FAT32 (File Allocation Table 32) is an older file system that both Windows machines and Macs still support.

FAT32 was introduced in Windows 95 in 1997, but it remains useful because nearly every system can use it.

Unfortunately, it isnt any good for storing movies and other large files: FAT32 has a size limit of 4 GB per file, so your files have to be small.

If you need to transfer files larger than 4 GB between Mac and Windows computers, exFAT (extended File Allocation Table) is the best option, although it doesnt work with File History or Time Machine.

First, partition the drive using Disk Utility with macOS, and (using our walkthrough below) format one part as HFS and the other as FAT32; then, plug the drive into Windows and reformat the FAT32 portion as NTFS.

Now your computer will see your single drive as multiple, smaller drives.

Make sure to leave plenty of room for future backups on both partitions.

Format For Mac And Windows Hardrive