Suitable: For drives that are used on both Mac and Windows. The exFAT format is an excellent “hybrid” for two computer worlds. If you are definitely going to use an external drive or flash drive with both Windows and Mac computers, choose exFAT when formatting your drive. For example, FAT32 supports files up to 4GB. The exFAT offers similar compatibility as FAT32, however, it doesn’t have any of the annoying limitations that FAT32 has. The exFAT format is a file system that was created by Microsoft and supports both Windows and macOS operating systems. Suitable: For old Macs and old macOS systems (before 2017) or for mechanical hard drives and SSDs.
Mac OS Extended supports encryption and password protection.Ĭons of HFS Plus: It is not supported on Windows computers until you install additional paid software like Paragon HFS Plus for Windows. If you bought a Mac before 2017 and haven’t updated it since then, it probably supports an HFS Plus drive.
HFS Plus (Hierarchical File System Plus) was used for Mac computers before APFS was introduced. Not Suitable: For disks used with older Macs or for Windows and Linux. Suitable: For macOS system drives, hybrid drives, SSDs, and flash drives that are only used on macOS. If you have an external SSD or a new USB stick and you definitely are not going to use them with Windows computers, you can choose this option.Ĭons of APFS: As of now, APFS cannot be used to back up data using Time Machine. APFS also pays a lot of attention to technologies such as encryption, as well as improving work with metadata.īy default, APFS is optimized for solid-state drives (SSDs) and flash drives, however, it can also be used for traditional mechanical hard drives (HDDs). The main advantage of APFS is the fast speed of copying, pasting, and doing other operations on a disk. All new Macs are already bundled with APFS. APFS replaced the outdated macOS file system called HFS Plus. APFS (Apple File System)ĪPFS is the format introduced by Apple in early 2017 for iOS devices. Let’s take a closer look at each file format for external drives for your Mac. What is the best format for an external Mac hard drive?
Keep reading, and we will explain the differences between disk formats in more detail, as well as how to format a hard drive for your Mac. If you want to be able to work with your hard drive on both Mac- and Windows-based computers, then you will have to choose other formats. If you are only going to use the hard drive on your Mac, then you should choose the HFS+ format. There are also FAT32 and ExFAT formats, which are compatible with both operating systems. Mac computers use a different file system called HFS+. For example, if you buy a new HDD, you will most likely first have to format the external disk to be able to use it on your Mac. This often causes difficulties when opening external drives on a Mac. Each volume within an APFS container can have its own APFS format-APFS, APFS (Encrypted), APFS (Case-sensitive), or APFS (Case-sensitive, Encrypted).Why do you need to reformat an external hard drive for your Mac?īy default, most models of hard disk drives (HDDs) and solid-state drives (SSDs) are formatted for a Windows operating system. You can easily add or delete volumes in APFS containers. For example, folders named “Homework” and “HOMEWORK” are two different folders.
For example, folders named “Homework” and “HOMEWORK” are two different folders.ĪPFS (Case-sensitive, Encrypted): Uses the APFS format, is case-sensitive to file and folder names, and encrypts the volume. Choose this option if you don’t need an encrypted or case-sensitive format.ĪPFS (Encrypted): Uses the APFS format and encrypts the volume.ĪPFS (Case-sensitive): Uses the APFS format and is case-sensitive to file and folder names. Each volume uses only part of the overall container, so the available space is the total size of the container, minus the size of all the volumes in the container.Ĭhoose one of the following APFS formats for Mac computers using macOS 10.13 or later.ĪPFS: Uses the APFS format.
If desired, you can specify reserve and quota sizes for each volume.
When a single APFS container has multiple volumes, the container’s free space is shared and is automatically allocated to any of the individual volumes as needed. macOS 10.13 or later supports APFS for both bootable and data volumes.ĪPFS allocates disk space within a container (partition) on demand. While APFS is optimized for the Flash/SSD storage used in recent Mac computers, it can also be used with older systems with traditional hard disk drives (HDD) and external, direct-attached storage. Apple File System (APFS), the default file system for Mac computers using macOS 10.13 or later, features strong encryption, space sharing, snapshots, fast directory sizing, and improved file system fundamentals.