The advantage of exFAT is that it is compatible with Macs. I don’t know how much it is, but I am sure you will never have a file so big. Unlike FAT32, the file size limit in exFAT is 2^64 – 1 bytes or 16 exabytes. Microsoft developed it in 2006 in order to support new 32GB SD cards. For instance, this is the error you will see in Windows when trying to copy a big 8GB file to a disk formatted in FAT32.Įrror when copying big files to FAT32 exFATĮxFAT stands for Extended File Allocation Table.

The largest file it supports is 2^32 – 1 bytes, which is a little less than 4GB. The downside of FAT32 file format is a file size limit. The advantage of FAT32 is that it is compatible with Macs. With files getting larger and larger Microsoft kept extending the number of bytes they supported until they released FAT32.įAT32 is still a DOS file format, but since Microsoft supports anything they built 40 years ago, you still can use it. The old format was designed in 1978 as an 8-bit file system. It’s the oldest Microsoft file format originally developed for MS-DOS.

FAT32įAT stands for File Allocation Table. Formatįrom the table above, you can see that two formats fully supported by macOS and Windows: FAT32 and exFAT. You just substitute external hard drive with USB flash drive, and the instructions will remain the same.īefore we make any irreversible changes, let me give you a quick overview of file formats supported in both systems. So let me show you how easy it is to format an external hard drive, so it works on both Mac and PC.īy the way, everything written here applies to USB flash drives as well. Probably, your external hard drive works on pc but not Mac. If you are reading this article, I bet you have the same problem.

Formatting disk on mac