

- #Partition hard drive mac and pc how to
- #Partition hard drive mac and pc for mac
- #Partition hard drive mac and pc mac os x
- #Partition hard drive mac and pc Pc
- #Partition hard drive mac and pc free
Some paid third-party NTFS drivers for Mac can be used to access NTFS drives on Mac. Three Options for Accessing NTFS Drives on Mac Paid Third-Party Drivers Nevertheless, a lot of users complained that exFAT is slow, and they highly suggest using FAT32 if you can avoid file size constraints.
#Partition hard drive mac and pc free
Of course, there is free partition manager that can help create a FAT32 volume up to 2TB, which also functions correctly.ĮxFAT: 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. In addition, a FAT32 partition must be not more than 32GB if you create it in Windows Disk Management. If your external drive saves files larger than 4GB or you plan to save larger files to this drive, converting to FAT32 is not recommended. However, single files on a FAT32 drive can't be larger than 4GB. As long as we format the external hard drive to one of these 2 file systems, it can be shared between Mac and Windows.īoth FAT32 and exFAT have advantages and disadvantages.įAT32: FAT32 works with all versions of Windows, Mac OS, Linux, game consoles, etc. 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.īut 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.
#Partition hard drive mac and pc mac os x
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.
#Partition hard drive mac and pc Pc
To 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.Ĭurrently, hard drives for Windows PC are always formatted with NTFS, while hard disks for Mac are formatted with HFS+. Why Need to Format External Hard Drive for Mac and PC Actually, most external hard disks could be compatible with Mac and PC as long as you format them correctly. Well, is there an external hard drive that could be shared between Mac and Windows PC? Of course, there is.
#Partition hard drive mac and pc how to

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.Three Options for Accessing NTFS Drives on Mac.Why Need to Format External Hard Drive for Mac and PC.The part about the ExFAT setting I understand, it’s the partition scheme setting I’m not clear on. Apple Partition Map: Choose this option for compatibility with old PowerPC-based Mac computers.”.Master Boot Record: Choose this option for compatibility with all Microsoft Windows-based computers.Some newer Microsoft Windows-based computers can also use this scheme. GUID Partition Map: Choose this option for all Intel-based and Apple silicon Mac computers.

“Disk utility supports the following schemes. If you click on the link “choose a partition scheme”, the linked page says: despite the fact the instructions are for formatting an external drive for use between Mac OS and Windows. the instructions just say “choose a partition scheme”.

The default seems to be set at GUID Partition Map, but Apple isn’t clear if that or the other choice, Master Boot Record is the one I need to choose. you have to chose one when you are formatting the disk. The question is what “Partition Scheme” do I use?. this is so I can share large collections of files between my Windows based computers and my MacBook. Sorry, I left out the word “external” (hard drive) when I wrote that. Thank you in advance for any information you may have on this topic. I haven’t formatted a Hard Drive for PC compatibility in a while, but I think it usually was Master Boot Record, but I definitely don’t recall mention of a 2TB limit.Īt the moment, the drive I am formatting is 2TB, so it probably won’t be an issue, but I’m asking this in advance as I wish to use a larger capacity drive in the near future. I decided to look that up and again it’s not really clear, since some either just repeat what Apple has written or they go into the pros and cons of Master Boot Record vs GUID Partition Map.īut two sources say basically that Master Boot Record is the choice for MS-DOS (FAT) or ExFAT, and Drives cannot exceed 2TB” In Apple’s “Disk Utility User Guide”, the Section “Partition schemes available in Disk Utility on Mac” is rather ambiguous as to whether “Master Boot Record” or “GUID Partition Map” is the appropriate choice for formatting a Hard Drive for use between a Mac and a PC, since the wording makes it seem that both can be used by Mac and “Some newer Microsoft Windows-based computers”
