![]() Fusion drives (at the last time I checked) can’t do it. Here are a couple of headaches – older systems, especially prior to Sierra are out. For Apple-centric SSD-based devices? Fantastic. I think BTRFS might be great for USB drives too.įirst, I love APFS – but I tend to resist one size fits all. I use it in the Cloud most of my working hours, and am disappointed that the RedHat/Centos/Rocky8 stream dropped bundled support for BTRFS filesystem. The Apple guys could have been well disposed to use it back then, it would have been an upgrade to what they had at the time.Īs to that question from a commenter, Does Linux exists, well yeah, but Meh. Now NTFS is a pretty good file system format, although I last studied it in detail in 1992. So those old mechanical hard drives are probably good for 100 years if not longer, perhaps even recovered from a landfill in 500 years assuming much improved technology for measuring extremely small magnetic fields. But I have recently (within the decade) read data from a Fujitsu Eagle last written in 1983. By the way, over the years I have found USB drives to be somewhat fragile with respect to electrical discharge and other problems. So I did chose exFAT for the USB transfer because of the larger file size and some better reported benchmarks. Linux under Chromebook opens up a world of utilities beyond the scope of this message. It offers to format as USB drive as FAT32, exFAT or NTFS. Both machines running the latest operating systems appropriate for the platform.Ĭhromebook can read Mac filesystem formats, but not write them. I found your article because I was trying to choose between FAT32 and exFAT in formatting a 64GB USB drive for use in transferring data between a ChromeBook and a MacBook. Love the tone and perspective of your article. And let me know if you have any questions. I hope this answers some common drive questions. Why am I hesitant? I consider disk access too important. And at least one way to read mac-formatted drives on Windows (for free). One footnote: I am hesitant to mention other ways to write NTFS on OSX for free. That way, you stop thinking about what any drive is formatted and just get your work done. It can read/write the Mac formats on a Windows system. If you’re mainly on Windows, format everything NTFS and buy a utility like MacDrive.It can read/write the Windows Format on a Mac System. If you’re primarily on Mac, format SSDs in APFS, HDDs inHFS+ and buy a utility like Paragon’s Microsoft NTFS for Mac.What should you do instead? It depends on your primary platform. Never use for live access of information. ![]() ![]() Where should I use ExFat? Predominantly on a removable drive that is used solely to transfer between systems. If they’re not accounted for, and you eject the drive incorrectly, you’ll possibly lose data or corrupt the drive. While reading/writing to a drive, some information is cached – especially some quick small elements. There are many, many of us who professionally switch platforms, sometimes inside of the same day. On paper, it looks great, but no, I don’t think you should use it!Ī good rule of thumb? If you’re on a Mac, use APFS for SSDs and HFS+ for HDDs. It can be read/written by Mac or Windows and doesn’t have the limitation of 4GB like Fat32. ExFat (Extensible File Allocation Table).APFS (Apple File System): The newest Mac drive format best for Solid State Disks (SSD).It’s the Mac drive format for spinning disk hard drives (HDD).Read/Write only on a Macintosh. Readable on both Mac and Windows, but only writeable on Windows. They read/write cross-platform, but a file must always be less than 4GB. Most of my thumb drives have been formatted from the factory. Yes, there are some others, but these are the ones you’re most likely to encounter. ![]() Here’s a shortlist of common drive formats. If you’re cross-platform, buy a utility (like MacDrive) that allows you to read the other format for the highest compatibility/data sanity. Use APFS or HFS+ (macOS Journaled) if you’re on Mac systems use NTFS if you’re on Windows systems. The TL: DR? I’m going to suggest you only use ExFat for transferring between computers – not as an active access use. This is all about drive format and, mainly, why ExFat is not your friend.
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