Format and Partition Scheme for a USB 3 Thumb Flash Drive

[Sossity]

What should I use? When I went to format this thumb drive in disk utility, I was presented with choices of partition schemes; Master Boot record, GUID, and Apple Boot Record.

I want to use this for music files, lots of them, but not over 4GB individually. I also want this thumb drive to be cross platform compatible.

I know FAT 32 is older, and eFAT is newer. I have read about FAT 32 limits of 4 GB for individual files, but most of my individual music files are not over 4 GB.

I have used an exFAT drive before, and found it to be glitchy, would not always eject, and whenever I renamed a folder full of files, the files would then seem to disappear.

 

[Fishrrman]

If you want it to be usable with a PC, I would try:
exFAT, Master Boot Record.

Another way to do it:
Take the drive to the Windows PC you're going to be using.
Format the drive on the PC. Use what format you want to use.
Then, take it to the Mac and see if it mounts/dismounts without problems.
If it does, just use it that way.

But if it DOESN'T, then, I'd go back to exFAT, MBR.

If the drive is to be used exclusively with Macs:
HFS+ (Mac OS extended with journaling enabled, GUID partition format).

 

[dwig]

The only time that I've found exFAT to be "glitchy" (read: problematic in any way) was when it was formatted on a Mac. My several exFAT drives have all worked very well on both Mac and Win, but I ALWAYS format them on a Windows machine. The only other real option is FAT32, but that should never be used with a drive that is 32Gb or larger without partitioning the drive into multiple partitions all less than 32GB

 

[Sossity]

The only time that I've found exFAT to be "glitchy" (read: problematic in any way) was when it was formatted on a Mac. My several exFAT drives have all worked very well on both Mac and Win, but I ALWAYS format them on a Windows machine. The only other real option is FAT32, but that should never be used with a drive that is 32Gb or larger without partitioning the drive into multiple partitions all less than 32GB

Interesting, I have had 2 TB SanDisk extreme Drive this one; https://www.westerndigital.com/prod...isk-extreme-pro-usb-3-1-ssd#SDSSDE80-2T00-G25, in exFAT right out of the box, no formatting on my mac, and it has been hit and miss, more recently, it would not unmount from my mac, I would get the message that a program is using it, even when there was not, and the only option would be to force eject. It is slow to mount on my mac as well. So a drive in this format has made me cautious and I do not trust it so much now. One can see the multiple mixed reviews; https://www.westerndigital.com/prod...isk-extreme-pro-usb-3-1-ssd#SDSSDE80-2T00-G25

I am in the process now of moving all my data off it, and I am abandoning it, I do not trust it, nor the exFAT format for this reason.

Right now, I do not have a windows machine near me.

Can I format my drives using windows under parallels on my mac?

 

[JeffPerrin]

Just a post here for those searching for similar issues:

Seems the culprit is likely Mac Disk Utility is getting a bit picky (er, crusty?) on more recent versions of MacOS. I instead formatted my USB thumb drive via Terminal and this solved my issues with formatting a 16GB USB drive so it could be recognized by my Blu-Ray player... (I needed Fat32 Master Boot record)

I'm no Terminal expert, though. See clues on how to in this thread: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/how-to-format-on-macos-a-usb-drive-as-dos_fat_32.2342278/