Can I use external hard drive on both PC and Mac?

Want to use one external drive for both your Windows PC and your Mac machine? Windows uses NTFS while Mac OS uses HFS, and they’re incompatible with each other. However, you can format the drive to work with both Windows and Mac by using the exFAT filesystem.

Can you use an external hard drive for multiple devices?

Any external drive can backup as many computers as there is space on the external drive, through any number of ways. Also, keep in mind that significant capacity may be needed to store all the files from the various computers, so be sure to purchase a drive large enough to handle your needs.

Can you use the same thumb drive on a Mac and PC?

You can format a hard drive or USB flash disk specifically so that it will be compatible with both Mac OS X and Windows PC computers.

Does exFAT work on Mac and PC?

exFAT is a good option if you work often with Windows and Mac computers. Transferring files between the two operating systems is less of a hassle, since you don’t have to constantly back up and reformat each time. Linux is also supported, but you will need to install appropriate software to take full advantage of it.

Is ExFAT compatible with Mac and Windows?

Does reformatting an external hard drive erase it?

The answer is no. Formatting does not erase data on the disk, which only makes file recovery much more difficult.

Can I use the same external hard drive on Mac and PC?

You can shape pretty much any external hard drive that can plug into both your Mac and your PC. And change your drive so that both Mac and Windows can read and write to it. And all you need is a little know how.

How to format external hard drive for Mac and PC?

Disk Utility is the software on your Mac that will format your external hard drive for Mac and PC. You can find Disk Utility by clicking on the Application folder. Then click on the Utilities folder inside the Application folder. In the Utilities folder you can double click on Disk Utility to start it up.

How to share an external hard drive with another computer?

1. You format your external hard drive to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) file system. 2. You format your external hard drive to ExFAT. 3. Then you can share the drive. Now, you can go ahead without step 1. But to be honest I’ve seen Macs get picky about formatting the drive to ExFAT without formatting to Mac OS first.

What is the best file system for external hard drive?

Typically, an external hard drive that works on a Windows PC uses an NTFS file system. And an external hard drive that works on a Mac is in HFS+ format. The faster SSD drives on a Mac may well use an APFS file system.