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What Format For Usb Drive Mac And Pc10/15/2021
How to Format a Drive on a Mac.If you want to use a different file system on your USB drive, you’ll need to format it.Format to FAT32. You’ll see the drive’s file system displayed to the right of Format under the General heading.In the screenshot below, the drive is formatted with the exFAT file system. 1 hours ago Howtogeek.com Visit Site. How to Erase and Format a USB Drive on Your Mac.
![]() You can even set up an OS X startup drive if you have the right files, the know-how, and a big enough flash drive, which will allow you to boot your Mac off an external disk if something goes wrong with your built-in drive. It also includes support for features from OS X Lion, such as Versions. I'll discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the other three formats below.Mac OS Extended (Journaled) - This is the default file system format for Mac OS X drives.Advantages: Formatting your USB flash drive this way will give you full interoperability with Macs. Unless you have extraordinary needs, you can safely ignore two of them: Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled) and Free Space. If the drive is listed as NTFS-formatted, you're going to need to format it to something else if you want full compatibility with Mac OS X.There are several possible file system formats you can use for a USB flash drive, and changing them in Disk Utility is as easy as selecting the number of partitions you want on the drive (usually just one), picking the format you want for the drive, and clicking "Apply." Note that this will erase all information on the drive, so make absolutely sure you've got copies of everything before moving forward.Disk Utility gives you five different choices for drive formats in OS X Lion. What Format For Usb Drive And Pc Update For ExFATIt has one big advantage over FAT32: exFAT supports file sizes larger than 4 GB, so if you have a need to move huge files between Macs and PCs, this is likely the format you'll want for your flash drive.ExFAT is supported by the following operating systems:Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6.5 or greater)Windows XP SP2 or later (with an additional update for exFAT support)Disadvantages: As a relatively newer file system format, exFAT isn't supported in older versions of Mac OS X (anything prior to 10.6.5) or anything older than Windows XP SP2. However, those downsides may be more than outweighed by FAT32's near-universal support, and if you don't think you're going to be dealing with files bigger than 4 GB, this may be the optimal choice.ExFAT - A newer file format, supported in Mac OS X 10.6.5 or later.Advantages: exFAT has many of the same advantages as FAT32 in that it's a disk format that offers interoperability between Macs and PCs. Furthermore, FAT32 doesn't support OS X Lion's Versions feature - something users have discovered the hard way when working directly off of files stored on a USB flash drive (something we recommend against doing). You also can't create a startup drive for your Mac using this format. It's the closest thing we have to a universal file system format, which is why most flash drives are formatted this way right out of the box.Disadvantages: FAT32 doesn't support files larger than 4 GB, and that's its greatest drawback. Virtually all cameras and videocameras support FAT32, too. Order by number in excel for macIf you need to transfer files between your Mac and one of these non-PC devices, you're almost certainly going to have to format your flash drive in FAT32 instead.Here's a basic rundown of which format we recommend for your USB flash drive, broken down by use case.If you absolutely, positively will only be working with Macs and no other system, ever: Use Mac OS Extended (Journaled).If you need to transfer files larger than 4 GB between Macs and PCs: Use exFAT.In all other cases: Use MS-DOS (FAT), aka FAT32. Of greater issue is that most consumer electronics (cameras, camcorders, video game systems) don't support exFAT, either.
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