![reformatting external drive for mac reformatting external drive for mac](https://technicalaide.com/uploads/2020/07/how-to-format-an-external-hard-drive-for-mac.jpg)
Checkout the official document from Apple stating the formats that are supported on mac and windows. Interestingly, almost all external hard drives are available formatted in NTFS only.
#REFORMATTING EXTERNAL DRIVE FOR MAC PC#
Most users that switch from windows have some or the other files to transfer from their old PC to new mac and data-transfer is a bottle neck for those users. On the other had, an external drive I used is a mac formatted external hard drive, which is compatible for both macOS & Windows. The default disk format on mac is APFS as shown in the image below. That is, if a hard drive is formatted in NTFS format, it can be read on a mac but you can’t write anything on those drive(s). This means, files stored in NTFS format can only be read in mac. That was because windows files are stored in NTFS format. The default problem with macOS out of the boxĪs I mentioned earlier, I faced problem transferring files from my windows PC to mac. If you’re looking for a solution around the same problem, your search ends here. This post is about how I formatted my external hard drives to be compatible with both mac & windows. I already had a 2TB external hard drive but I had no idea I can use that on mac and windows as well. That’s the biggest hurdle you’ll face while transferring data from windows to mac or vice-versa. MacOS (and many linux flavours) cannot write on NTFS formatted external drives, but can read though. NTFS & FAT (also FAT32) are the external hard disk format supported by windows and macOS respectively. While using Windows, if you ever got a chance to format/reformat a drive, you must’ve noticed the format type. NTFS is the default format that windows prefers for its drives. If you too had faced this, you’d relate to this.
![reformatting external drive for mac reformatting external drive for mac](https://thesesoftware.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/how_to_reformat_external_drive_for_mac_2.jpg)
I even considered buying SSD hard drives, thinking only SSD hard drives are compatible with mac.
![reformatting external drive for mac reformatting external drive for mac](https://recoverit.wondershare.com/images/format-drive-mac-pc-7.jpg)
#REFORMATTING EXTERNAL DRIVE FOR MAC FOR MAC#
After I purchased my MacBook Pro, I was searching for mac format external drives. I partially knew that I won’t be able to transfer my data from windows to mac easily. When I switched to mac from windows 2 years ago, I had a mild idea that mac and windows aren’t the best of friends.