At Image Science, we deal with files and storage devices all day every day.
You can format a drive with HFS+ using the macOS Disk Utility app, which you can launch from the Launchpad (Other Disk Utility). Using ExFAT on macOS and Windows. While you can only use an Apple file system like APFS and Mac OS Extended for your main system drive, another file system is also worth considering for external drives—ExFAT. You can, but not out of the box. Most external hard drives (HD) are sold in a format called NTFS, which is designed to work with Windows. Macs read and write to a different format, called HFS+.
In recent years, most files have begun to arrive electronically and we have a fast and reliable file upload tool you can use to send us files. However, we also generate large files here as part of our scanning service, and thanks to the pathetic state of what passes as internet in this country, a lot of people do still use external hard drives and of course USB keys to share files with us.
So the question then becomes - how best to do this? What is the best modern format to use to reliably store and transfer files between systems - whatever operating system they may be running, be it PC, Mac, or Linux?
This is in fact more relevant a question in recent times than years previous as there's a strong momentum back to PCs from Macs of late! Image Science is a Windows house, because Windows printer drivers and colour management have proven vastly more reliable over the last 15 years than the ever changing Mac system. We do have software here to read Mac formatted disks if necessary, but it's never as easy and reliable as a properly formatted external drive.
Disk Utility User Guide
Exfat External Hard Drive
Download adobe r. Disk Utility on Mac supports several file system formats:
Apple File System (APFS): The file system used by macOS 10.13 or later.
Mac OS Extended: The file system used by macOS 10.12 or earlier.
MS-DOS (FAT) and ExFAT: File systems that are compatible with Windows.
Apple File System (APFS)
Apple File System (APFS), the default file system for Mac computers using macOS 10.13 or later, features strong encryption, space sharing, snapshots, fast directory sizing, and improved file system fundamentals. While APFS is optimized for the Flash/SSD storage used in recent Mac computers, it can also be used with older systems with traditional hard disk drives (HDD) and external, direct-attached storage. macOS 10.13 or later supports APFS for both bootable and data volumes.
APFS allocates disk space within a container (partition) on demand. When a single APFS container has multiple volumes, the container's free space is shared and is automatically allocated to any of the individual volumes as needed. If desired, you can specify reserve and quota sizes for each volume. Each volume uses only part of the overall container, so the available space is the total size of the container, minus the size of all the volumes in the container.
Format External Drive Windows 10
Choose one of the following APFS formats for Mac computers using macOS 10.13 or later.
APFS: Uses the APFS format. Choose this option if you don't need an encrypted or case-sensitive format.
APFS (Encrypted): Uses the APFS format and encrypts the volume.
APFS (Case-sensitive): Uses the APFS format and is case-sensitive to file and folder names. For example, folders named 'Homework' and 'HOMEWORK' are two different folders.
APFS (Case-sensitive, Encrypted): Uses the APFS format, is case-sensitive to file and folder names, and encrypts the volume. For example, folders named 'Homework' and 'HOMEWORK' are two different folders.
You can easily add or delete volumes in APFS containers. Each volume within an APFS container can have its own APFS format—APFS, APFS (Encrypted), APFS (Case-sensitive), or APFS (Case-sensitive, Encrypted).
Mac OS Extended
Choose one of the following Mac OS Extended file system formats for compatibility with Mac computers using macOS 10.12 or earlier.
Mac OS Extended (Journaled): Uses the Mac format (Journaled HFS Plus) to protect the integrity of the hierarchical file system. Choose this option if you don't need an encrypted or case-sensitive format.
Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted): Uses the Mac format, requires a password, and encrypts the partition.
Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled): Uses the Mac format and is case-sensitive to folder names. For example, folders named 'Homework' and 'HOMEWORK' are two different folders.
Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled, Encrypted): Uses the Mac format, is case-sensitive to folder names, requires a password, and encrypts the partition.
Windows-compatible formats
Choose one of the following Windows-compatible file system formats if you are formatting a disk to use with Windows.
MS-DOS (FAT): Use for Windows volumes that are 32 GB or less.
ExFAT: Use for Windows volumes that are over 32 GB.
