External drive formatting

[msintros]

This is probably a stupid question but I am curious about the different formats on drives and what is idea for backups.

In particular, when looking at the drives in Disk Utility, I have noticed that some of my backup drives have different formats depending on whether I click on the actual name of the drive or what I am guessing is the actual volume or partition below it. For example I have one 2 TB drive that is called 2 TB WD 20EADS External. If I have the "Erase" tab selected, it has the format as MS-DOS (FAT). I don't know if this is the actual format of the drive or it is just saying that's what it will be if I erase it and format it. But below this is 2TB BACKUP which is Mac OS Extended (Journaled). So, is the whole drive Mac OS Extended? And is this the best format for a backup? I know this is kind of a nooby question..

 

[Fishrrman]

What you need to remember:

IF the external drive is going to be used primarily with the Mac, you want to format (erase) it to "Mac OS extended with journaling enabled". This is also called "HFS+" (two different names for THE SAME THING).

IF the drive is going to be "cross-platform" (used with both a Mac and a PC), there are several formats that can be used.
Try "exFAT" (format it on the PC and see if it connects to the Mac without problems).

A warning:
I -WOULD NOT- keep "valuable Mac stuff" on a cross-formatted drive.
If you have Mac stuff that's important to you, keep it on an HFS+ drive.
If you need to "share" stuff between a Mac and a PC, use a drive that's dedicated to this purpose. A USB flash drive is usually all one needs.

 

[msintros]

Thanks, yeah I've used HFS+ so far in the past and never had any issues. At one point I had a drive in FAT that I used to occasionally plug into PC but it seemed to sometimes alter file names, which was a problem. I'm guessing that's one of many reasons why you suggest not using it for valuable Mac files. I guess I'll keep on doing what I'm doing!