Best Portable Hard Drive For Pc And Mac



What Is ExFAT? Microsoft's exFAT is a file system designed for cross-platform mobile personal storage. The exFAT format is designed for high-capacity flash drives, memory cards, and external hard drives. The format is designed to require minimal adjustments to add support from Microsoft's widely used FAT32 format on the developer and manufacturer side. ExFAT improves on many of the FAT32 format's limitations, including increasing the maximum storage capacity per partition or reserved section from 32 gigabytes to 256 terabytes. External hard drives benefit from exFAT because you can set them up with large partitions that can contain the entire device -- instead of in 32GB sections in FAT32 -- and maintain compatibility between Macs and PCs. Format to ExFAT on Windows 8 Windows 8's included Disk Management tool can format devices to exFAT.

Best Portable Hard Drive For Windows And Mac

Best Portable Hard Drive For Pc And Mac

To format an external hard drive to exFAT with the tool, connect the hard drive to the computer, press 'Windows-R,' then type 'diskmgmet.msc' and select 'OK.' After the Disk Management program has launched, right-click on the external hard drive's partition graphic box. The hard drive partitions are listed on the lower section of the Window. Recently attached devices will appear at the bottom of the list and the partition will be marked with the dark blue color bar on the top of the box. Best picture collage app for mac. Select the 'Format.' Option from the menu.

The 4TB Seagate Backup Plus Portable Drive hard drive has more features and double the storage for $50 more, but if portability is your main concern, this drive is a straightforward and affordable. Every week our Peter Cohen brings you Switch to Mac — a column to help you move from Windows PC to the Mac and OS X! Read more about switching to Mac One option is to back up your old Windows external drive (using Time Machine or another method ).