Format drive to exFAT in Windows 10 so it is read-and-write in Mac OS as well. This tutorial explains how to format external hard drive/USB flash drive exFAT in Windows 10.
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Whether you’re formatting an internal drive, external drive, USB flash drive, or SD card, Windows gives you the choice of using three different file systems: NTFS, FAT32, and exFAT. The Format dialog in Windows doesn’t explain the difference, so we will.
RELATED:What Is a File System, and Why Are There So Many of Them?
A file system provides a way of organizing a drive. It specifies how data is stored on the drive and what types of information can be attached to files—filenames, permissions, and other attributes. Windows supports three different file systems. NTFS is the most modern file system. Windows uses NTFS for its system drive and, by default, for most non-removable drives. FAT32 is an older file system that’s not as efficient as NTFS and doesn’t support as big a feature set, but does offer greater compatibility with other operating systems. exFAT is a modern replacement for FAT32—and more devices and operating systems support it than NTFS—but it’s not nearly as widespread as FAT32.
NT File System (NTFS)
NTFS is the modern file system Windows likes to use by default. When you install Windows, it formats your system drive with the NTFS file system. NTFS has file size and partition size limits that are so theoretically huge you won’t run up against them. NTFS first appeared in consumer versions of Windows with Windows XP, though it originally debuted with Windows NT.
NTFS is packed with modern features not available to FAT32 and exFAT. NTFS supports file permissions for security, a change journal that can help quickly recover errors if your computer crashes, shadow copies for backups, encryption, disk quota limits, hard links, and various other features. Many of these are crucial for an operating system drive—especially file permissions.
Your Windows system partition must be NTFS. If you have a secondary drive alongside Windows and you plan on installing programs to it, you should probably go ahead and make it NTFS, too. And, if you have any drives where compatibility isn’t really an issue—because you know you’ll just be using them on Windows systems—go ahead and choose NTFS.
RELATED:How to Share Files Between Mac OS X and Windows With Boot Camp
Despite its advantages, where NTFS lacks is compatibility. It’ll work with all recent versions of Windows—all the way back to Windows XP—but it has limited compatibility with other operating systems. By default, Mac OS X can only read NTFS drives, not write to them. Some Linux distributions may enable NTFS-writing support, but some may be read-only. None of Sony’s PlayStation consoles support NTFS. Even Microsoft’s own Xbox 360 can’t read NTFS drives, although the new Xbox One can. Other devices are even less likely to support NTFS.
Compatibility: Works with all versions of Windows, but read-only with Mac by default, and may be read-only by default with some Linux distributions. Other devices—with the exception of Microsoft’s Xbox One—probably won’t support NTFS.
Limits: No realistic file-size or partition size limits.
Ideal Use: Use it for your Windows system drive and other internal drives that will just be used with Windows.
File Allocation Table 32 (FAT32)
FAT32 is the oldest of the three file systems available to Windows. It was introduced all the way back in Windows 95 to replace the older FAT16 file system used in MS-DOS and Windows 3.
RELATED:What’s the Difference Between FAT32, exFAT, and NTFS?
The FAT32 file system’s age has advantages and disadvantages. The big advantages is that because it’s so old, FAT32 is the de-facto standard. Flash drives you purchase will often come formatted with FAT32 for maximum compatibility across not just modern computers, but other devices like game consoles and anything with a USB port.
Limitations come with that age, however. Individual files on a FAT32 drive can’t be over 4 GB in size—that’s the maximum. A FAT32 partition must also be less than 8 TB, which admittedly is less of a limitation unless you’re using super-high-capacity drives.
While FAT32 is okay for USB flash drives and other external media—especially if you know you’ll be using them on anything other than Windows PCs—you won’t want to FAT32 for an internal drive. It lacks the permissions and other security features built into the more modern NTFS file system. Also, modern versions of Windows can no longer be installed to a drive formatted with FAT32; they must be installed to drives formatted with NTFS.
Compatibility: Works with all versions of Windows, Mac, Linux, game consoles, and practically anything with a USB port.
Limits: 4 GB maximum file size, 8 TB maximum partition size.
Ideal Use: Use it on removable drives where you need maximum compatibility with the widest range of devices, assuming you don’t have any files 4 GB or larger in size.
Extended File Allocation Table (exFAT)
RELATED:What File System Should I Use for My USB Drive?
The exFAT file system was introduced in 2006 and was added to older versions of Windows with updates to Windows XP and Windows Vista. exFAT is optimized for flash drives—designed to be a lightweight file system like FAT32, but without the extra features and over head of NTFS and without the limitations of FAT32.
Like NTFS, exFAT has very large limits on file and partition sizes., allowing you to store files much larger than the 4 GB allowed by FAT32.
While exFAT doesn’t quite match FAT32’s compatibility, it is more widely-compatible than NTFS. While Mac OS X includes only read-only support for NTFS, Macs offer full read-write support for exFAT. exFAT drives can be accessed on Linux by installing the appropriate software. Devices can be a bit of a mixed bag. The PlayStation 4 supports exFAT; the PlayStation 3 does not. The Xbox One supports it, but the Xbox 360 does not.
Compatibility: Works with all versions of Windows and modern versions of Mac OS X, but requires additional software on Linux. More devices support exFAT than support NTFS, but some—particularly older ones—may only support FAT32.
Limits: No realistic file-size or partition-size limits.
Ideal Use: Use it when you need bigger file size and partition limits than FAT32 offers and when you need more compatibility than NTFS offers. Assuming that every device you want to use the drive with supports exFAT, you should format your device with exFAT instead of FAT32.
NTFS is ideal for internal drives, while exFAT is generally ideal for flash drives. However, you may sometimes need to format an external drive with FAT32 if exFAT isn’t supported on a device you need to use it with.
Ntfs Or Exfat Windows 10
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You need to format a hard drive if you plan on using it in Windows.
To format a hard drive means to erase any information on the drive and to set up a file system so your operating system can read data from, and write data to, the drive.
As complicated as that might sound, it's not really difficult to format a hard drive in any version of Windows. All operating systems offer this capability and Windows makes it easy.
If the hard drive you want to format has never been used or was just wiped clean, it must first be partitioned. See our article How to Partition a Hard Drive in Windows for instructions. Once partitioned, return to this page for help formatting the drive.
Time Required: The time it takes to format a hard drive in Windows depends almost entirely on the drive's size, but your computer's overall speed plays a part, too.
How to Format a Hard Drive in Windows
Follow these easy steps to format a hard drive in Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, or Windows XP:
- Open Disk Management, the hard drive manager included with all versions of Windows.Opening Disk Management can be done a number of ways depending on your version of Windows, but the easiest method is to type diskmgmt.msc in the Run dialog box or the Start menu.Another way to open Disk Management is through Control Panel.
- After Disk Management opens, which might take several seconds, look for the drive you want to format from the list at the top. There's a lot of information in Disk Management, so if you can't see everything, maximize the window.Look for the amount of storage on the drive as well as the drive name. For example, if it says Music for the drive name and it has 2 GB of hard drive space, then you've likely selected a small flash drive full of music.Feel free to open the drive to make sure that it's what you want to format if it makes you confident that you're going to format the right device.If you don't see the drive listed on the top or an Initialize Disk windows appears, it probably means that the hard drive is new and has not yet been partitioned. Partitioning is something that must be done before a hard drive is formatted. See our article How to Partition a Hard Drive for instructions and then come back to this step to continue the formatting process.
- Now that you've found the drive you want to format, right-click it and choose Format to open the disk-formatting wizard.Now is as good a time as any to remind you that you really, really, really need to make sure that this is the right drive. You certainly don't want to format the wrong hard drive.
- Existing Drive: If you're formatting a drive that you've been using and that has data on it, double-check in Explorer that the drive letter you're choosing here in Disk Management is the same as the one you see in Explorer that has the information on it that you want to erase. Once formatted, the existing data on the disk are probably unrecoverable for most people.
- New Drive: If you're formatting a new drive, a great way to tell that it's the right one is to look at the File System column in the top part of Disk Management. Your existing drives will show file systems of NTFS or FAT32 but a new, unformatted drive will show RAW instead.
You cannot format your C drive, or whatever drive Windows is installed on, from within Windows. In fact, the Format option isn't even enabled for the drive with Windows on it. See How to Format C for instructions on formatting the C drive. - The first of several formatting details which we'll cover over the next several steps is the volume label, which is essentially a name given to the hard drive.In the Volume label textbox, enter whatever name you'd like to give to the drive.If the drive had a previous name and that makes sense for you, by all means, keep it.Drive letters are assigned during the Windows partitioning process but can easily be changed after the format is complete. See How to Change Drive Letters after the format process is done if you'd like to do that.
- Next up is the file system choice. In the File system textbox, choose NTFS.FDM Lib takes it upon itself to provide free download links and inform users when the developing company starts providing a version of Samplitude Pro for direct download. Use the link below and download Samplitude Pro legally from the developer's site.We wish to warn you that since Samplitude Pro files are downloaded from an external source, FDM Lib bears no responsibility for the safety of such downloads. Samplitude 10 download free. We recommend checking your downloads with an antivirus. Thank you for using our software library.NTFS is the most recent file system available and is almost always the best choice. Only choose FAT32 (FAT — which is actually FAT16 — isn't available unless the drive is 2 GB or smaller) if you are specifically told to do so by a program's instructions that you're planning on using on the drive. This is not common.
- In the Allocation unit size textbox, choose Default. The best allocation size based on the size of the hard drive will be chosen.It's not at all common to set a custom allocation unit size when formatting a hard drive in Windows.
- Next is the Perform a quick format checkbox. Windows will check this box by default, suggesting that you do a 'quick format' but we recommend that you uncheckthis box so that a 'standard format' is performed.In a standard format, each individual 'part' of the hard drive, called a sector, is checked for errors and overwritten with a zero — a sometimes painfully slow process. This procedure ensures that the hard drive is physically working as expected, that each sector is a reliable place to store data, and that existing data is unrecoverable.In a quick format, this bad sector search and basic data sanitization is skipped entirely and Windows assumes that the hard drive is free of errors. A quick format is very fast.You, of course, can do whatever you like — either method will get the drive formatted. However, especially for older and brand new drives, we'd prefer to take our time and do the error checking right now instead of letting our important data do the testing for us later on. The data sanitization aspect of a full format is nice, too, if you're planning on selling or disposing of this drive.
- The final format option is the Enable file and folder compression setting that is unchecked by default, which we recommend sticking with.The file and folder compression feature allows you to choose files or folders to be compressed and decompressed on the fly, potentially offering considerable savings on hard drive space. The downside here is that performance can be equally affected, making your day-to-day Windows use much slower than it would be without compression enabled.File and folder compression has little use in today's world of very large and very inexpensive hard drives. In all but the rarest occasions, a modern computer with a large hard drive is better off protecting all the processing power it can and skipping on the hard drive space savings.
- Review the settings you've made in the last several steps and then click OK.
- Volume label: [label of your choosing]
- File system: NTFS
- Allocation unit size: Default
- Perform a quick format: unchecked
- Enable file and folder compression: unchecked
Look back at whatever previous steps you need to if you're wondering why these are the best options. - Windows is usually pretty good about warning you before you might do something damaging, and a hard drive format is no exception.Click OK to the warning message about formatting the drive.Just as the warning says, all the information on this drive will be erased if you click OK. You can't cancel the format process halfway through and expect to have half of your data back. As soon as this starts, there's no going back. There's no reason for this to be scary but we do want you to understand the finality of a format.
- You can check the progress by watching the Formatting: xx% indicator under the Status column in the top part of Disk Management or in the graphical representation of your hard drive in the bottom section.If you chose a quick format, your hard drive should only take several seconds to format. If you chose the standard format, which we suggested, the time it takes the drive to format will depend almost completely on the size of the drive. A small drive will take a small amount of time to format and a very large drive will take a very long time to format.Your hard drive's speed, as well as your overall computer's speed, play some part but the size is the biggest variable.In the next step, we'll look at whether the format completed as planned.
- Disk Management in Windows won't flash a big 'Your Format is Complete!' message, so after the format percentage indicator reaches 100%, wait a few seconds and then check again under Status and make sure it's listed as Healthy like your other drives.You may notice that now that the format is complete, the volume label has changed to what you set it as (New Drive in our case) and the % Free is listed at 100%. There's a little overhead involved so don't worry if your drive isn't completely empty.
- That's it! Your hard drive has been formatted and it's ready for use in Windows. You can use the new drive however you want — back up files, store music, and videos, etc.
- If you'd like to change the drive letter assigned to this drive, now is the best time to do that. See How to Change a Drive Letter for help.
Formatting Deletes Data — But Doesn't Always Erase It
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When you format a drive in Windows, data may or may not truly be erased. Depending on your version of Windows, and the type of format, it's possible the data is still there, hidden from Windows and other operating systems but still accessible in certain situations.
See How to Wipe a Hard Drive for instructions on truly removing all the information on a hard drive and Wipe vs Shred vs Delete vs Erase: What's the Difference? for some helpful clarification.
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If the hard drive you're reformatting won't ever need to be used again, you can skip the format and the wipe, and physically or magnetically destroy it instead. See How to Completely Erase a Hard Drive for more on these other methods.
More on Formatting Hard Drives in Windows
If you want to format your hard drive so you can install Windows again from scratch, your hard drive will be automatically formatted as part of that process. See How to Clean Install Windows for more on that.
Not happy with the drive letter that Windows assigned during the partitioning process? You're welcome to change it at any time! See How to Change Drive Letters in Windows to learn how.
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You can also format a hard drive via Command Prompt using the format command. See Format Command: Examples, Switches, & More for details on how to do that.