Can you use an external hard drive with both Mac and PC?

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.

What hard drive is compatible with Mac and Windows?

FAT32. The FAT32 format is compatible with both Mac and Windows operating systems. FAT32 has a few disadvantages. It can’t store any single file larger than 4GB.

Can you take a hard drive out of one Mac and put it in another?

To transfer your data, you’ll need both your original drive and your new drive, connected at the same time. For single-drive computers, you’ll need a device to connect the old drive to your computer after your new drive is installed.

What is best format for Mac external hard drive?

exFAT
The Best Format for External Hard Drives If you want to format your external hard drive to work with Mac and Windows computers, you should use exFAT. With exFAT, you can store files of any size, and use it with any computer made in the last 20 years.

What format should I use for external hard drive Mac?

You need to format the external hard drive with the file system that is recognized by Mac. The supported file systems include Apple File System (APFS), Mac OS Extended (HFS+), MS-DOS (FAT), and exFAT. You can use the Erase function in Disk Utility to format the storage drive to your needed format.

Why can’t I move files from my Mac to an external hard drive?

The simplest reason why you may not be able to write to a hard drive is if it is full. Single-click on the disk in the Finder, then choose “Get Info” from the “File” menu. Check to make sure there is space listed after the label “Available:” in the General section of Get Info.

How do I transfer photos from Mac to external hard drive?

Import from a hard disk, optical disc, or flash drive Connect the device to your Mac. In Photos, choose File > Import, then select the items you want and click Review for Import. To set where to import the items, click the “Import to” pop-up menu and choose a location.

Does Mac support FAT32?

The first format, FAT32, is fully compatible with Mac OS X, though with some drawbacks that we’ll discuss later. If the drive’s format comes up as MS-DOS (FAT) or, less likely, ExFAT, you may be able to simply leave the drive as-is and not bother reformatting it.

Can you use the same external hard drive for a Mac and a PC?

While you can physically connect a Mac hard drive to a Windows-based PC, the PC cannot read the drive. Because the two systems utilize different file systems for storage: Macs use the HFS, HFS+, or HFSX formats and PCs use either the FAT32 or NTFS . The same holds true if you connect a PC hard drive to a Mac computer.

What is the best external hard drive for a Mac?

External hard drives for Mac work pretty much the same as they do for a PC. The best external hard drives for Mac tend to connect to Macs via Thunderbolt or USB 3.0 cables. This allows for the fastest connectivity, generally speaking.

Can I put a Mac hard drive into PC?

The detailed process: Use a tool like HFSExplorer to copy files from your Mac hard drive to your PC. Connect the disk to your PC, use the free partition manager, EaseUS Partition Master, to format the hard drive to NTFS or FAT, which is depending on the Follow Method 1 to recover data from your Mac hard drive on your PC.

Can a PC and a Mac Read my external hard?

Your old external Windows PC drive will work great on the Mac. Apple has built OS X Yosemite and some previous OS X releases with the ability to read from those disks just fine. If you’re using such a drive and you’d like to write new data to them, you’ll find you can’t unless you add new software.