FAT32 for both Windows and OSX reading?

R.O.S.S.I · 5 Jan 2014 at 22:10

Hi all, hopefully this will be an easy one to answer.......got some music projects which i'm taking over to a friends tomorrow which I need to copy all my samples and project files onto a flash drive for.

If I format it as FAT32 will the Mac OSX machine read the data fine and be able to copy any files from it to his machine? Or is there a different format which needs to be used?

Slogan · 5 Jan 2014 at 22:21

Yes, it'll be able to interact with it as normal. Only thing to be aware of with FAT32 (that you're likely already aware of!) is the 4GB file limit.

imb4tman · 5 Jan 2014 at 22:23

exFAT works on both without the 4GB limit.

Ben Cole · 6 Jan 2014 at 00:12

As above, I use exFAT but I don't need XP anymore (with which it doesn't work).

Invertigo · 6 Jan 2014 at 00:31

exFAT here too for my externals. All the computers I generally use run OSX, but I do occasionally need to use a PC for printing work at uni if the tiny number of macs in the library are taken

ShortWarning · 6 Jan 2014 at 11:24

Sorry to take this marginally off topic but I have an external drive which I used with my Windows laptop which is formatted in NTFS.

OSX reads this fine.

Is there any benefit in backing up and formatting it in ex-fat? It still needs to be able to connect to windows.

imb4tman · 6 Jan 2014 at 13:19

ShortWarning said:
Sorry to take this marginally off topic but I have an external drive which I used with my Windows laptop which is formatted in NTFS.

OSX reads this fine.

Is there any benefit in backing up and formatting it in ex-fat? It still needs to be able to connect to windows.

Doesn't write to NTFS though.

ShortWarning · 6 Jan 2014 at 13:40

imb4tman said:
Doesn't write to NTFS though.

So I probably should give it a format then, haha. Thanks.

R.O.S.S.I · 6 Jan 2014 at 16:49

Wont be putting anything on that is singularly bigger than 4GB anyway as i've only got a 4GB pen drive handy! exFAT it is anyway!