Any changes you make on files on this system is permanent. The only drawback of exFAT is that it doesn’t support Journaling, i.e., cannot keep track of file changes. You can have a maximum of 4GB size limit per file which is not ideal. Now you can plug into any OS – even Linux, and it will work in reading and write mode. You might argue why not use FAT32 which works for both the OS’s. Click Start and close this window when finished.In the File System dropdown, choose exFAT.Open up File Explorer and right-click on the drive.Plug-in your drive into the computer’s USB port.After these steps, everything will be lost forever. Look in the side bar of the File Explorer window and click on This PC. On your Windows PC open the File Explorer App. Plug In Your External Hard Drive And Open File Explorer. It is where exFAT or Extended File Allocation Table comes into the picture. If you don’t know, exFAT was created to be used on flash drives like USB or SD cards. So the question is how do you format a hard drive using exFAT? The answer is even more straightforward.īefore we go ahead, if you have anything on your drive, make sure to backup everything. Making Your External Hard Drive Compatible Mac And PC On A PC. The Canvio Flex is compatible with both Mac and Windows PC, as well as supported tablet devices with USB-C port (2). So I needed a format which is both read and write on both the systems. Combining compatibility and portability, the Canvio Flex portable external hard drive is designed to work interchangeably with most major USB devices and operating systems. This sounds logical to me but is there something I'm missing.I am the kind of person who needs to switch between both the OS daily. It's been suggested to me to use them as RAID by mirroring as each drive can easily be separated to be removed to a different location.

The machine will mainly be used for photography and I've got 2 x 5TB external hard drives for back up storage.

The potential downside as far as I can see is I'd be working on the files off a slow drive so is there a way I can automate the process to download the RAW images to the Mac HD and then automatically back them up to the external HDs ? I've looked at Time Machine but my concern is will it delete previously saved images from the external HDs once I delete them from the Mac HD to free up space once I've finished working on them This workflow means I'd download the RAW files to the external hard drives and they will be automatically copied across if I've understood this correctly? This sounds logical to me but is there something I'm missing. My Mac Mini has arrived and I would appreciate some advice on back up and efficient workflow please - it's my first experience with Apple

Hard drive that works with mac and pc