• External Hard Drive File System For Mac And Windows
• Hard Drive File System For Mac And Pc
• Hard Drive For Mac Pro
• Backup Hard Drive For Mac
• Hard Drive File System For Mac Osx

Open and edit your Mac files from the new window or access them direct from Windows Explorer or your favorite software. MacDrive has built a reputation on blazing quick read/write speeds and unparalleled data security. MacDrive 10 extends the lead with even faster access and more protection for your Mac disks and files. MACH.2 Multi-Actuator Hard Drive. File System Format Comparisons ⎙ Print Mail Share; This article covers some of the different file systems with the pros and cons of each one. Drives can be setup with various file systems and each file system has pros and cons. Open Disk Management, the hard drive manager included with all versions of Windows. The HFS+, or Hierarchical File System plus on its real name, was the main file system used for Mac until 2017. This type of file system is suitable to use with both HDD and SDD drives, but the latter will perform slightly better with the APFS mentioned above.

If you have an external hard drive or USB flash drive that you’d like to use on both Macs and Windows PCs, choosing the right file system to format the drive can be confusing. Learn a few ways to make your drive Mac and PC friendly.

Need to access or transfer files between Mac and PC? As simple as this task sounds, it’s not very straightforward for inexperienced users. Since Mac OS X and Windows use totally different file systems, the way a drive is formatted can determine what type of computer it will work with. In fact, there are four ways you can format an external or USB flash drive to achieve varying degrees of compatibility between Macs and PCs. Let’s take a look at them:

HFS+

Mac OS X’s native file system is HFS+ (also known as Mac OS Extended), and it’s the only one that works with Time Machine. But while HFS+ is the best way to format drives for use on Macs, Windows does not support it. If you’re only going to be using your external or USB flash drive with certain PCs – such as at home or the office – you might be interested in a program called MacDrive. When you install MacDrive on a Windows PC, it will be able to seamlessly read & write to HFS+ drives. This isn’t a good solution if you need your drive to work on any PC without installing software, though.

NTFS

The native Windows file system is NTFS, which is only partially compatible with Mac OS X. Macs can read files on NTFS drives, but it cannot write to them. So if you need to get files from a PC to your Mac, NTFS is a decent option. However, you won’t be able to move files in the other direction, from Mac to PC.

FAT32

The most universally supported way to format your drive is with the FAT32 file system. It works with all versions of Mac OS X and Windows. Case closed, right? Well, not so fast. Unfortunately, FAT32 is a very old file system and has some technical limitations. For example, you cannot save files that are larger than 4GB on a FAT32-formatted drive. This is a deal-breaker if you work with huge files. The other limitation is the total size of the partition. If you format your FAT32 drive in Windows, the drive partition cannot be larger than 32GB. If you format it from a Mac running 10.7 Lion, the drive partition can be up to 2TB. Much better, except for that pesky 4GB limit.

exFAT

The exFAT file system eliminates the two major deficiencies of FAT32: the largest partition and file sizes it supports are virtually unlimited by today’s standards. Awesome, it’s perfect! Almost… since exFAT is fairly new, it isn’t compatible with older Macs and PCs. Any Mac running 10.6.5 (Snow Leopard) or 10.7 (Lion) supports exFAT, while PCs running Windows XP SP3, Windows Vista SP1, and Windows 7 are compatible. If you know you’ll be using computers running updated versions of these operating systems, exFAT is the clear best choice.

Format a drive using Disk Utility on a Mac

1. Launch Disk Utility (Applications > Utilities).
2. Select your external hard drive or USB flash drive from the list on the left.
3. Click on the Erase tab. Select the format – Mac OS Extended (HFS+), MS-DOS (FAT32), or exFAT – then name the drive.
4. Click the Erase button and the drive will start formatting. Be aware that formatting a drive deletes all of the files on it, so back up anything important before completing this step.

Format a drive using Windows

External Hard Drive File System For Mac And Windows

1. Go to Computer (or My Computer in Windows XP).
2. Select your drive from the list and right-click on it. Choose Format from the contextual menu.
3. A window will pop up where you can choose the format – NTFS, FAT32, or exFAT. Make sure the allocation unit size is set to default and type in a volume label.
4. Click Start to format the drive.

Written by Mårten Björk •

This article will help you understand how to browse your files on a Mac. Don’t panic, it’s not very complicated.

Understanding it

Your hard drive contains millions of files. Both your personal files such as documents, photos or music files, but also system files that your Mac needs to operate properly.

If all these files were in the same place, it would be very hard for you to find your stuff, right? It would be one gigantic pile of files. That’s why we have folders. You can think of a folder as a box in which you can put your stuff.

You can even put folders inside other folders. For instance, you could create a folder called “vacation photos” and put it inside a “memories” folder. Neat and tidy, just the way we like it.

Get started

Let’s get started browsing through your files. First, click the “Macintosh HD” icon on your desktop. A new window will appear.

This is called a Finder window. The Finder window allows you to explore the contents of your hard drive.

The Finder window – how it works

It’s quite easy to understand how to use a finder window. We’ll now explain the most basic things about it.

Resize it!

If you wish to resize a Finder window, just drag (keep mouse button pressed down) the handle in the lower right corner.

Change viewing options

Hard Drive File System For Mac And Pc

If you wish to change the way things are viewed inside a Finder window, there are a few buttons you should know about.

Inside your hard drive

The hard drive of a brand new Mac contains four folders (click Macintosh HD to view them):

Applications

The Applications folder contains all your applications.

Library and system

The two folders called Library and System are not very interesting for beginners. They contain stuff that your Mac needs in order to work properly.

Users

The Users folder contains one folder for each user plus a Shared folder where the users can put stuff that they want all the users of the computer to have access to.

The folder associated with the user currently logged in (you) looks a bit different. Instead of looking like a folder, it looks like a house. This folder is called your Home folder.

Home folder

The Home folder is great. Every user on a Mac has one. It allows you to organize your stuff in a smart and easy way.

When you click your Home folder, you will see a lot of different folders. We’ll now explain what they do.

Desktop

Within your Home folder there is a folder called Desktop. It is an exact reflection of your real desktop. All files in that folder are visible on your real desktop.

Movies

Put your movies in this folder. What else needs to be said?

Public

If you want to share a file with another user, just put it in the Public folder and he/she can access it (your other folders can’t be accessed by other users).

Documents

Put your documents in this folder. Word documents, Excel documents, Pages documents – this is the right folder for them!

Hard Drive For Mac Pro

Music

This is the place where music will be put. However, when you start iTunes it will automatically create a sub-folder called “iTunes” in the Music folder. If you wish to add songs to iTunes, just drag them to the iTunes icon and they will automatically be organized into the iTunes folder.

Sites

If you like to create web pages, put them here. Also, if you save web pages using your web browser, you might want to put them in the Sites folder.

Library

The Library folder is one of those geeky ones. The Library folder inside Macintosh HD contains stuff for the whole computer, while the Library folder inside your Home folder contains stuff unique for your user account. Well, never mind, you probably won’t need to touch this folder for a long time.

Pictures

This is the folder where you should put your images. If you use iPhoto in order to organize your photos, iPhoto will automatically create a folder called “iPhoto” inside your Pictures folder. If you wish to add images to iPhoto, just drag them to the iPhoto icon and they will automatically be organized into the iPhoto folder so you don’t have to do it yourself.

Search

Backup Hard Drive For Mac

Every Finder window has a search field. Just type something and your search will be performed.

Hard Drive File System For Mac Osx

To read more about it, read our article about Spotlight.