

Also, ExFAT supported Solid State Drives – also known as a Flash drive.īecause at that time there was a need for a file system that could work with. The aim of ExFAT was to work on a USB drive. ExFAT stands for Extensible File Allocation Table. ExFAT is a file system originally made for a PC. Since When Has An ExFAT External Hard Drive Worked Between A Mac And A PCįirst brought out in in 2006. And read and write the file to an ExFAT external drive. xlsx for example.Īs long as the application software program can understand the file. pdf files if that’s the type of file you’re sharing.

You’ll need an application program that can read. You’ll need application software that can read the file format your files are actually in. And you can use those files on your Mac.Īnd write back your changed files from both your PC and Mac. Or MacBook Air running its default file system.

Or read an external disk with an ExFAT formatted partition on it.Īnd when you connect that same external hard drive to your Mac, MacBook Pro. Yet read an external hard drive with an ExFAT file system on. And file system on its internal drive(s). Why Is ExFAT The Best Format For External Drive Mac And PC?īecause your Windows computer can run its normal operating system.

I have used Time Machine for many years and know that it should not be this slow, even via USB to HDD. (My initial Time Machine backup is taking an abysmally long time. Why is it doing this even though it ultimately creates an APFS container? When I use Disk Utility to do this, I see the initial message as "Formatting disk3s2 as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with name Time Machine, followed by "Initialized /dev/rdisk3s2 as a 7 TB case-insensitive HFS Plus volume with a 524288k journal". When formatting an external HDD as APFS with Disk Utility in Big Sur, why does it still first say "Formatting diskxxx as Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" with a case-insenstivie HFS Plus volume? I bought a new external hard drive HDD to create a Time Machine Backup.Īpple now recommends formatting any external Time Machine backup as APFS.
