After a new round of research and testing, the 64 GB Kingston DataTraveler Elite G2 is our new top pick.
After a new round of research and testing, the 64 GB Kingston DataTraveler Elite G2 is our new top pick.
The 128 GB Samsung Fit Plus is the best thumbnail-sized drive and the 128 GB Sandisk Extreme Go is the best option for frequent large file transfers.

You can format your external hard drive from either the PC or Mac. Just keep in mind if you want to use your drive also for OS X’s Time Machine backups, we advise you to format your drive through Mac because there is an additional step to make drive compatible with “Time Machine Backups”.

Format Usb Flash Drive Mac

Your guide

The best ways to format an external drive for Windows and Mac. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with Windows and Mac. And, no: the answer isn't always FAT32.
Mac OS Extended (Journaled) - This is the default file system format for Mac OS X drives. Advantages: Formatting your USB flash drive this way will give you full interoperability with Macs.

Format a drive using Disk Utility on a Mac. Launch Disk Utility (Applications > Utilities). Select your external hard drive or USB flash drive from the list on the left. Click on the Erase tab. Select the format – Mac OS Extended (HFS+), MS-DOS (FAT32), or exFAT – then name the drive. Mac OS Extended (Journaled) - This is the default file system format for Mac OS X drives. Advantages: Formatting your USB flash drive this way will give you full interoperability with Macs.

Thorin Klosowski

After 40 hours researching and testing 11 flash drives, we found that the 64 GB Kingston DataTraveler Elite G2 is the one to get. It is fast, reliable, and inexpensive, and has a textured metal case that makes it easier to insert or remove from your USB port than the slippery plastic cases of most flash drives.

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Our pick

64 GB Kingston DataTraveler Elite G2

The fastest, most consistent 64 GB drive we tested; it's also reasonably priced and has a sturdy black metal casing and a five-year warranty.

Buying Options

*At the time of publishing, the price was $32.

The 64 GB Kingston DataTraveler Elite G2 was the fastest, most consistent flash drive we tested, and it usually costs less than $30, around the same price as other similarly sized models. The metal casing has excellent build quality, but it’s not so large it’ll block any USB ports on your laptop. It also has a five-year warranty and a blinking blue LED indicator that lets you know when the drive is active. But its small, untethered cap is easy to misplace.

Also great

128 GB Samsung Fit Plus

This one is tiny enough that you can leave it plugged into your laptop for extra storage, but its slower write speeds aren’t ideal for shuttling files between devices.

Buying Options

*At the time of publishing, the price was $25.

If you need a tiny flash drive to keep on a keyring, or plugged into a laptop as semi-permanent storage, we recommend the thumbnail-sized 128 GB Samsung Fit Plus. It had some of the fastest read speeds of all the drives we tested, but its small file write speeds were about 30 percent slower and its large file write speeds almost 50 percent slower than the DataTraveler Elite G2 in our tests. Its fast read speeds are ideal for expanded storage, but its slow write speeds mean transferring files to the Fit Plus takes considerably longer than to our other picks—which is fine if you're just using it as extra storage for your laptop. Like most drives of this size, the Fit Plus lacks an indicator light. It comes with a five-year warranty.

Upgrade pick

128 GB SanDisk Extreme Go

This 128 GB drive, which is nearly as fast as the 64 GB Kingston DataTraveler Elite G2, is for people who often move large files between computers.

Buying Options

*At the time of publishing, the price was $47.

If you frequently move large files between computers and need more storage, the 128 GB SanDisk Extreme Go is the best high-capacity flash drive we tested. (Though if you’re moving large files daily, you may be better off spending more for a portable SSD, which is almost eight times faster at writing files.) The Extreme Go had the fastest write speeds of the 128 GB drives we tested and quick read speeds, plus it costs about as much as its closest competition. The Extreme Go’s plug retracts into its case, so unlike the Kingston, there’s no small cap to lose. But its durable plastic case is chunky enough to block nearby ports on some laptops, and its indicator light “breathes” constantly when the drive is inactive. SanDisk’s lifetime warranty is the best around, beating out Samsung’s and Kingston’s five-year warranties.

Why not USB-C?

While we would have liked to recommend an option that works with USB-C without needing a USB-C to USB-A adapter, every USB-C flash drive we’ve tested to date has been slow or poorly made. We will update as soon as we find one worth recommending.

The Best Portable SSD
After testing five external solid-state drives in 2019, we found that the Samsung T5 Portable SSD has the best balance of speed, size, price, and reliability.

HomeStorageExternal StorageHow to format external hard drive for Mac and PC?

Often switch between a Mac and PC? Want to use one USB flash storage device for both? The thing is that by default, these platforms use different file systems – discs are formatted differently. Windows uses NTFS, and Mac OS uses HFS, these file systems are not compatible with each other. However there is a simple solution – you can format the drive to FAT32 or exFAT that performs better than FAT32. In the resulut, your external hard drive will work just fine with Mac and Windows.

FAT32 or exFAT?

You can format your external hard drive in both – exFAT and FAT32. They both will work just fine. Mac and PC can read and write on both. However, each of these filesystems has their own pros and cons. FAT32 has a maximum 4GB file size limit, but exFAT can work with files as large as 16EB, that’s more than you will ever need. If you have to work with large video clips, games or any other kind of massive files, FAT32 may not be the best choice. Many still choose FAT32 over exFAT despite its slower performance, as it’s also compatible with Linux Os and is supported on many gaming consoles.

Once you have done with formatting, your external hard drive will be able to write and read files from both a PC and Mac. The resulting FAT32 file system will be compatible with all versions of Mac OS X, and Windows including Windows 10 back to 95. This is one of the most widely recognized file system formats.

FAT32 – a file system normally used on USB disks
exFAT – a newer file system optimized for flash devices and has improved performance overFAT32

Why I can’t use NTFS on Mac?

The default file system for Windows is NTFS (New Technology File System). Macs that run Snow Leopard or Lion can read data from drives that are formatted as NTFS. However, they can’t write. To make your Mac compatible writing on NTFS you have to get and install a third-party driver. So in the end, it’s possible to make your NTFS external hard drive compa

Format Usb Flash Drive Mac

Our pick

64 GB Kingston DataTraveler Elite G2

Buying Options

Also great

128 GB Samsung Fit Plus

Buying Options

Upgrade pick

128 GB SanDisk Extreme Go

Buying Options

Why not USB-C?

The Best Portable SSD

FAT32 or exFAT?

Why I can’t use NTFS on Mac?

Best Format For Flash Drive Mac And Pc