can i use my external hard drive for both mac and pc

Please bear in mind that using the same drive regularly between both Windows and Mac can increase chances of corruption or damage. Once you’ve formatted the drive using exFAT file system, it is ready to be used in both Windows and Mac systems.

Click on ‘ Erase’ to complete the format process.

Assign a ‘name’ to the partition and select ‘ExFAT’ file system for the format.

Please note that this will erase all data on the drive so make sure you have a backup before performing this step.

On the left panel, you will find a list of drives select your ‘external hard drive’ from the list.

Click on ‘ Utilities’ > ‘Disk Utility’ to open Disk Utility.

Open ‘ Finder’ and select ‘ Applications’ on the left panel.

Start by connecting the external hard drive to your Mac and follow the steps below. To format a drive on Mac, you can use the built-in tool called ‘Disk Utility’.

Next, let us see how you can format a drive on a Mac. Finally, assign the volume a ‘new name’ and click on Next to complete the format process.Īfter you’ve formatted using ‘ExFAT’ file system, the external hard drive is ready to be used in both Windows and Mac machines.Then ‘format’ the partition as ‘ExFAT’ in the format partition screen.In the next step, assign a ‘drive letter’ to the external drive.The volume size is the same as the maximum volume size that is displayed in the same wizard Choose a ‘volume size’ in the wizard that opens.Identify your ‘external hard drive’ from the list of drives and right click on it.This tool is used to manage all disk drives associated with your computer

Press ‘ Windows + X’ and select ‘ Disk Management’.First, connect the external hard drive to your PC and make sure you have a backup as formatting will erase all data on the drive.

Now that you know whether you want to use FAT32 or ExFAT, we’ll move on to the steps to format an external hard drive.įormatting a drive is pretty straightforward using ‘Disk Management’ utility in Windows. On the other hand, if you’re looking for compatibility with other devices such as Xbox 360 and such, you can use FAT32. For example, FAT32 supports files up to 4 GB, while ExFAT has a limit of 16EB. Generally, ExFAT is preferred over FAT32 as ExFAT has large partition and file size limits and also performs better. To help you select between FAT32 and ExFAT, here are some details. To do this, you will need to format the drive using exFAT or FAT32, which are file systems compatible with both Windows and Mac. Yes, it is possible, but the only requirement is that the file system used is compatible on both these machines. You may be thinking if it is possible to use an external hard drive on both PC and Mac.

Can i use my external hard drive for both mac and pc