best format for usb drive for mac and pc

#BEST FORMAT FOR USB DRIVE FOR MAC AND PC MAC OS#
#BEST FORMAT FOR USB DRIVE FOR MAC AND PC MOVIE#
#BEST FORMAT FOR USB DRIVE FOR MAC AND PC PORTABLE#
#BEST FORMAT FOR USB DRIVE FOR MAC AND PC WINDOWS#

Portable drives don't have a power plug they get the juice they need to run through their data interface. Desktop-style external hard drives are larger, are based on the beefier and more capacious 3.5-inch drives used in full-size desktop PCs, and require their own AC power source. The portables are obviously smaller, and are based on the kinds of 2.5-inch platter drives used in laptops. These come in both portable and 'desktop' versions. On the other hand, if you're looking to buy an external drive mainly to back up your files ( which you should definitely do) and it will rarely leave your home office, an inexpensive spinning drive will work just fine. You'll pay handsomely, of course-some Mac-specific arrays cost thousands of dollars. (Or both it depends on how the array is set up.) The result is that you can get SSD-like speeds, with throughput of more than 400MBps, and capacities that top out close to 50TB. An array contains two or more drives that all work together to increase throughput, or guard your precious files against corruption via drive redundancy if one of the drives fail.

#BEST FORMAT FOR USB DRIVE FOR MAC AND PC MOVIE#

Compare that with external spinning drives, which are easy to find even in capacities in excess of 8TB for desktop-style drives, or up to 5TB for portable ones.įor professional videographers who edit lots of 4K footage and gamers or movie buffs who have large libraries of multi-gigabyte titles, an external RAID array made up of multiple platter-based drives is worth considering, since it combines the near-speed of an SSD with the gargantuan possible capacities of spinning drives. External SSDs also have lower capacity limits, with most drives topping out at 2TB. You could pay more than 25 cents per gigabyte for an SSD, while spinning drives can be had for less than 10 cents per gigabyte-and often much less. One major downside, however, is that they're more expensive. (See our overall picks for favorite external SSDs.) Their small size means they can often fit into a jacket or pants pocket, which makes them a better choice if you're looking for a portable external drive that you'll be carrying with you frequently. SSDs are often smaller and lighter than spinning external drives, as well, which is also thanks to the lack of moving parts. Each has its advantages and disadvantages, and-unlike the file system-the type you buy is the type you're stuck with for the life of the drive.Ī solid-state drive (SSD) offers quick access to your data because it stores your bits in a type of flash memory rather than on spinning platters. Once you've settled on a file system, you then have to determine which storage medium you want: solid-state or spinning disk. Some highly specialized external drives might not work with Macs even if they're formatted correctly, but consumers looking for extra space simply to store backups or large video collections aren't likely to encounter them.

#BEST FORMAT FOR USB DRIVE FOR MAC AND PC WINDOWS#

If you really fancy a consumer-oriented drive formatted for Windows (which will usually pre-formatted in the NTFS format), you can use the Disk Utility in macOS to reformat it after you bring it home from the store. Of course, you can easily reformat most external drives, so you're not limited to buying only those intended for use with Macs. You won't get the security and efficiency of APFS, but you will get the convenience of being able to transfer files back and forth between Windows and macOS simply by plugging in and unplugging your drive. If you plan to use your external drive with computers that run both operating systems, you should consider formatting your drive with the exFAT file system. Neither Apple File System nor HFS+ works with Windows, however. Any drive formatted with HFS+ will work just fine with a Mac that's running macOS High Sierra or later. There are many benefits to switching from HFS+ to APFS, including better security thanks to native encryption, but the most important thing to note for external-drive shoppers is backward-compatibility. It's simply called the Apple File System (APFS), and it's the first format to be used across both Macs and iOS devices.

#BEST FORMAT FOR USB DRIVE FOR MAC AND PC MAC OS#

With the release of the macOS High Sierra operating system, Cupertino ditched its venerable Mac OS Extended file system, commonly abbreviated as HFS+, and switched to an entirely new file system.

Best Hosted Endpoint Protection and Security Softwareīefore we get to Thunderbolt 3, we need to address a basic building block of hard drives that has always affected compatibility, and probably always will: the file system.Īn external drive's file system is the most important factor that determines whether or not it's readable by Macs, PCs, or both.

Best format for usb drive for mac and pc