FAT32 is commonly used in floppy disks, SD memory cards, USB flash drives, digital cameras, as well as many portable and embedded devices. It provides twice the speeds of standard USB 3.0 drives.įAT file system includes three major file system variants but the majorly used one is FAT32. If you want to make use of your Mac's Thunderbolt port, then this is the best external hard drive for Macs. Unlike Windows, macOS gives you the tools to format, partition. Formatting and dealing with hard drive-related matters, in general, is easy in macOS. How to Format Your External Drive on macOS. So before you know how to format a hard drive, you should know the pros and cons of each file system. However, different file systems have different advantages and disadvantages. So, every hard disk needs a proper file system, including desktop drives and portable storage devices like external hard drives, USB flash drives and SD cards. The file system is one of the most important part for an external hard drive because it manages how your files are stored and retrieved. Make external hard drives compatible with Mac and PC without formatting Common File Systems for Mac and PC How to partition an external hard drive for Mac and Windows PC? 6. How to format external hard drives for Mac and PC? 5. How to format external hard drives for Windows computer? 4. How to format external hard drives for Mac? 3.
