Mac OS & ExFat

[Miltz]

Is it safe to use Exfat for a backup drive so both my PC and MacBook can use the same drive? I’ve read Mac OS doesn’t like ExFat and drives fail using it. Is there any truth to this? I won’t be using the drive for time machine, just file transfer.

 

[Thilus]

I am using exFAT for most of my external hard drives/usb sticks and it works well for me. I did not ever have any problems with dying devices.

 

[apb87]

Is it safe to use Exfat for a backup drive so both my PC and MacBook can use the same drive? I’ve read Mac OS doesn’t like ExFat and drives fail using it. Is there any truth to this? I won’t be using the drive for time machine, just file transfer.

I haven't actually had the drives "fail", per-say, but it seems like every time I get everything formatted and setup as ExFat in disk utility, Windows 10 wants to format it when I plug it in and can't read anything off of it.

 

[EugW]

I haven't actually had the drives "fail", per-say, but it seems like every time I get everything formatted and setup as ExFat in disk utility, Windows 10 wants to format it when I plug it in and can't read anything off of it.

I've seen that happen too with USB drives. So, yeah, if you want to use exFAT, best to format it on a Windows computer.

Note though, if you want absolute integrity of the metadata and what not for stuff like databases and software, best to save on a Mac format, unless you make a disk image first. For example, a Photos database won't work off my NAS's ext4 format, but should work fine off an external HFS+ drive.

 

[Miltz]

I decided to Do the Apple File System. It proved to be faster in my 10GB file test of RAW image which is mainly what I have. And it's the future.