what disk format can be read by mac and windows

How to Format A Portable Hard Drive for Mac and PC Sorry Apple community, but my main computer is a PC. Thank you in advance for any information you may have on this topic. I haven’t formatted a Hard Drive for PC compatibility in a while, but I think it usually was Master Boot Record, but I definitely don’t recall mention of a 2TB limit.Īt the moment, the drive I am formatting is 2TB, so it probably won’t be an issue, but I’m asking this in advance as I wish to use a larger capacity drive in the near future.

I decided to look that up and again it’s not really clear, since some either just repeat what Apple has written or they go into the pros and cons of Master Boot Record vs GUID Partition Map.īut two sources say basically that Master Boot Record is the choice for MS-DOS (FAT) or ExFAT, and Drives cannot exceed 2TB” In Apple’s “Disk Utility User Guide”, the Section “Partition schemes available in Disk Utility on Mac” is rather ambiguous as to whether “Master Boot Record” or “GUID Partition Map” is the appropriate choice for formatting a Hard Drive for use between a Mac and a PC, since the wording makes it seem that both can be used by Mac and “Some newer Microsoft Windows-based computers”

What disk format can be read by mac and windows