Most hard disks will have a fixed disk format set before leaving the factory by default. If the format is not compatible with the system used by the user's computer, it will not be possible to correctly read and write the hard disk or even recognize the hard disk. For both Mac system and Windows system, they all have certain hard disk formats that they support. What is the hard disk format supported by Mac, what hard disk format is supported by Mac and Win, the following will tell you the answer.
First, the hard disk format supported by mac
1. APFS (Apple File System), as the default hard disk format of the Mac system, is naturally supported by the Mac system. It has features such as strong encryption, space sharing, disk snapshots, and fast directory size statistics.
Among them, the APFS format is divided into four different formats: APFS (regular), APFS (encrypted), APFS (case-sensitive), and APFS (case-sensitive, encrypted).
Figure 1: APFS format
2. MacOS extended format. This format is also one of the hard disk formats supported by Mac . It is mainly for compatibility with the old version of Mac system. At present, the new version of Mac mainly uses the APFS format introduced above as the built-in hard disk.
Similarly, MacOS extensions are also divided into MacOS extensions (journaled), MacOS extensions (journaled, encrypted), MacOS extended (case-sensitive, journaled), MacOS extended (case-sensitive, journaled, encrypted) different formats.
Figure 2: MacOS Extended Format
3. In addition to the above two hard disk formats developed by Apple, the Mac system also supports two disk formats, MS-DOS (FAT) and ExFAT. Among them, the former is applicable to hard disks whose size is equal to or less than 32GB, and the latter is applicable to disks whose size is larger than 32GB.
Figure 3: FAT and ExFAT
2. What hard disk format is supported by mac and win
1. MS-DOS (FAT) format. As mentioned above, the FAT format is one of the formats supported by Mac. In fact, this format was developed by Microsoft and can also be used on Windows systems.
The advantage of the FAT format is that it is very compatible. It can not only be used in new versions of Mac and Windows systems, but also compatible with old versions of Windows systems, such as Windows XP, and is easy to maintain. The disadvantage is that it is not safe, and it can only support a maximum of 32GB partitions, a single file It can only support up to 4GB.
Figure 4: FAT formatted disk
2. ExFAT format. It combines the advantages of many FAT formats and is also compatible with Mac and Windows systems. It was launched to solve the problem that the size of the FAT format is too small at 32GB. It is better optimized for flash SSD hard drives and is suitable for solid-state drives; the disadvantages are The compatibility of mechanical hard disk is not strong, and data is easy to lose.
Figure 5: ExFAT format
3. How to convert hard disk format in Mac system
Since both Mac and Windows have so many hard disk formats, which one is better? In fact, there is no absolute hard disk format. You need to make a choice according to your common use and system. The hard disk can be converted by software such as Txuera NTFS For Mac.
Currently, Txuera NTFS For Mac supports converting disk file systems to common formats such as NTFS, exFAT, MacOS extensions, and FAT.
Figure 6: Convertible Hard Disk Format
This article answers your questions about the hard disk format supported by Mac, and what hard disk format is supported by Mac and Win. Among them, APFS, MacOS Extended, FAT, and ExFAT are all supported by Mac systems, and FAT and ExFAT are Mac and Windows systems. Commonly compatible hard disk formats. In addition, Txuera NTFS For Mac also provides the function of mutual conversion between formats, which can realize hard disk format system adaptation without any effort.