By default, it doesn’t, which is why you can’t have a file called “Fun.txt” and “fun.txt” in the same folder on a Mac. Case Sensitivity mostly determines whether the file system sees capital letters as different. To be clear, you can use capital letters in file names either way. And unless you really know what you’re doing, and have a specific reason for wanting it, you shouldn’t use case sensitivity when formatting a drive. RELATED: How to Read a Mac-Formatted Drive on a Windows PC Case Sensitive: Avoid Unless You Know Why You Want ItĪPFS and Mac OS Extended both offer a “Case Sensitive” option, but macOS does not use this setting by default. So despite the disadvantages, ExFAT is your best option for cross-platform hard drives. Sure, you could read a Mac formatted drive on Windows or read a Windows formatted drive on a Mac, but both solutions either cost money or are unstable. It’s not a particularly optimized file format-it’s far more vulnerable to file fragmentation than APFS or Mac OS Extended, for one thing, and metadata and other features used by macOS aren’t present.īut formatting a drive with ExFAT offers one huge advantage: both Windows and macOS computers and both read and write to this format. The format dates back to 2006, and was made by Microsoft to provide some of the cross-platform compatibility of the older FAT32 format without the file and partition size limitations. And forget about reading an APFS drive from Windows: there aren’t even third-party tools out there for that yet.ĮxFat: Best for External Drives Shared With Windows ComputersĮxFat should basically only be used on drives that need to work with both Windows and macOS computers. If there’s an older Mac you need a drive to work with, APFS is a bad choice for that drive. 2016’s macOS Sierra was the first operating system capable of reading and writing to APFS systems, meaning any Mac using an older operating system will not be able to write to APFS-formatted drives. So what’s the catch? Reverse compatibility. We’re just skimming the surface, so check out our article about everything you need to know about APFS for more information about the benefits of APFS. There are also a number of reliability improvements, making things like corrupted files a lot less common. And improvements to metadata mean it’s very quick to do things like determine how much space a folder is taking up on your drive. RELATED: APFS Explained: What You Need to Know About Apple's New File Systemįor one thing, APFS is faster: copying and pasting a folder is basically instantaneous, because the file system basically points to the same data twice. First released in 2016, it offers all sorts of benefits over Mac OS Extended, the previous default. Let’s dive into a bit more details about the top three choices below, and then explain a few of the sub-options.ĪPFS: Best for Solid State and Flash DrivesĪPFS, or Apple File System, is the default file system for solid state drives and flash memory in 2017’s macOS High Sierra. The other factors, like encryption and case sensitivity, aren’t something you should get too hung up on. Use this for an external drive that will plug into both kinds of computers.Ĭhoosing a file system is basically choosing between these three options. ExFAT is the best cross platform option, designed to work on Windows and macOS systems.On macOS High Sierra, it’s used on all mechanical and hybrid drives, and older versions of macOS used it by default for all drives. Mac OS Extended, also known as HFS Plus or HFS+, is the file system used on all Macs from 1998 until now.It’s optimized for solid state drives (SSDs) and other all-flash storage devices, though it will also work on mechanical and hybrid drives.
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