
It’s not as lightweight as ExFAT, and you can’t use an HFS+ drive with Windows.ĪPFS is Apple’s newest file system designed for internal SSD’s (solid-state drives).

For that, it’s perfect… Not so much for external drives. But this is because it was made to store the operating system on an internal hard drive. It’s “smarter” than ExFAT and FAT32 with more safety features, healing capabilities, security against fragmentation and more. HFS+ (also called Mac OS Extended) is Apple’s native file system for mechanical hard drives. It’s compatible with macOS, Windows, Linux and other known operating systems. You will mostly find this format in newer USBs, memory cards (for both smartphones and cameras), and external drives. It’s the modern replacement for FAT32, and it doesn’t have the limit of 4 GB per file. FAT32 (and its successor ExFAT) was made for external storage.ĮxFAT is a lightweight and reliable file system for storage devices. We no longer recommend formatting anything to FAT32 due to its 4 GB per file limit, but it’s worth knowing because it’s still widespread. File SystemįAT32 is hailed as the “most compatible” file system and it’s one of the oldest formats still in use.

But we did our best to break down each file system so you can make a confident decision when choosing. FAT32, exFAT, HFS+, APFS… Acronyms are confusing. Mac works with a lot of formats, but we also want to consider the purpose of that hard drive to determine the best file system to use. What Format to Select for Toshiba Hard Drive You have to format it to a compatible file system to use it with your Mac.

Use for OS – If you want to use a hard drive for your operating system, it needs to be formatted to make room for the new file system and all the prerequisites to run macOS.How to Recover Data Lost After Formatting Toshiba Hard Driveįormatting a drive (especially an old drive) almost always makes it perform faster, and it may be imperative to the drive’s health.

