File system Mac and Windows. Mac OS File Systems
Many of our readers who have to work in both Mac OS X and Windows sooner or later encounter the problem of file intolerance between operating systems. Indeed, a disk formatted in Mac OS is not recognized in Windows, while a disk formatted in Windows is visible in Mac OS, but as a rule, is not writable.
Thus, problems arise if you need to “transfer” a file via an external drive or “flash drive” from one system to another. In this article we will look at what file systems Windows uses, and how to most conveniently organize file exchange via .
File system (hereinafter referred to as FS) is an order that determines the way of organizing, storing and naming data on storage media. It defines the format of the content and physical storage of information, which is usually grouped in the form of files. A specific file system determines the size of the file name (folder), the maximum possible file and partition size, and a set of file attributes. Some file systems provide service capabilities, such as access control or file encryption. .
Mac OS X fully supports the following file systems:
- Mac OS Extended (including Mac OS Extended journaling and Mac OS Extended case-sensitive)
- FAT32
- exFAT
Windows fully supports the following file systems:
- FAT32
- exFAT
“Fully supports” means that the operating system can read and write from a disk partition formatted in one of the above file systems.
Note that the Mac OS Extended Journaled and NTFS file systems are fail-safe systems, and therefore they should be given preference when choosing a file system for a drive. However, as mentioned at the beginning of the article, the native file systems of Mac and Windows have poor cross-support. Thus, a disk in Mac OS Extended format is not recognized by Windows, and a disk in NTFS format is visible in Mac OS X, but is read-only - nothing can be written to it.
Therefore, for external disk drives that are periodically connected either to Mac or to Windows machines, it is advisable to use file systems that are fully supported by both operating systems. These are FAT32 and the little-known exFAT. These are not as damage-resistant file systems as Mac OS Extended and NTFS, but as a rule, they are quite sufficient for “household” use.
Surely many users have already encountered the most important drawback of the FAT32 file system - the limitation on the maximum file size, which is 4 GB (4,294,967,296 bytes). It is “thanks to” this factor that there is a refusal to use this PS. Indeed, the 4GB limit does not allow recording on such a disk, for example, video files in FullHD format, which usually “weigh” around 30GB.
The exFAT (extended FAT or extended FAT) FS, which was specially designed as a replacement for FAT32 for use on external drives such as flash drives, memory cards, etc., does not have the 4GB/file limitation. The theoretical limit on file size in this FS is 2^64 bytes (16 exbibytes), that is, there are practically no restrictions. exFAT support is available in Windows XP with Service Pack 2 and 3 with update KB955704, Windows Vista with Service Pack 1, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, as well as Mac OS X Snow Leopard since version 10.6.5.
Taking into account the above, it is exFAT that is recommended to be used on those drives that are periodically connected either to a Mac or to Windows.
However, quite often users have a situation when they already have an NTFS hard drive with information on it, and they need to connect it to the Mac. Mac OS X will see the NTFS partition, but only in read mode. To be able to write to such a disk, you need to install a driver on Mac OS X
Mac OS X File Systems
Virtual file system
Access rights to removable media
URL mounting of AppleShare and Web servers
Long file names
Disk file systems HFS, HFS+, UFS
" CD/DVD support UDF, ISO 9660
Network file protocols AFP, NFS
Mac OS X works with a variety of file systems. This is accomplished by using BSD system extensions and a mechanism called the Virtual File System (VFS). Support for multiple file systems includes some new features that were not present in previous versions of Mac OS:
Removable media access rights based on unique identification numbers (IDs) registered with the system for each connected removable media device, including USB and Firewire devices.
URL-based volume mounting, which allows you to mount volumes on AppleShare and Web servers.
Long file names (up to 255 characters, or 755 bytes based on UTF-8).
Because there are three different environments in which programs run and run (see "Application Program Support") and many types of storage media, Mac OS X must support multiple storage media formats and network file protocols.
The media formats that Mac OS X works with are presented in Table 20, File Systems.
The many file system formats on magnetic disks create some difficulties when exchanging documents between volumes. For example, the classic HFS file system only supports the so-called MacRoman character encoding system for file and folder names. The HFS+ file system uses the canonical Unicode 2.1 character set in UTF-16 format, that is, as a sequence of 16-bit codes. The UFS file system also supports the full Unicode 2.1 character set, but only in UTF-8 format. Therefore, to reduce problems, it is strongly recommended not to use Table 20. File systems
Table 21. Network file protocols
HFS file system when working with Mac OS X, despite the fact that this is not formally prohibited.
Because Mac OS X is designed to work in complex, heterogeneous environments, it supports several network file protocols (see Table 21, “Network File Protocols”).
Mac OS X supports a disk quota mechanism. This means that the system administrator can set a disk space limit for each local or remote user. Quotas apply to almost all rewritable devices with a file structure.
File systems HFS, HFS+: file structure features
Resource fork, data fork
Packing/unpacking Mac files; BinHex format
Resource files
Finder attributes
File type (type), file creator (creator)
HFS and HFS+ file systems consist of two logical parts - two "internal files" called forks.
The resource fork is designed to store so-called resources - windows, menus, icons, fonts, sounds, all kinds of tables and much, much more. Executable program code is also one of the resources.
A data fork is designed to store dynamically created data. Programs can write any information to it.
A file program usually has a saturated resource fork and an almost empty data fork; in a document file, the opposite is true: the main information is contained in the data branch, and the resource branch is either empty or contains a minimum of resources.
The multi-branch file structure is generally quite convenient, but in some cases it can create serious problems. The main one is that when transferring data over non-Macintosh-based networks, the resource fork is often not recognized and forwarded, or is forwarded incorrectly. This is tantamount to destroying files.
To prevent this from happening, special measures have to be taken: first, a “regular” file is created in which both branches of the Mac file are packaged in a special BinBex format. Such a file is transmitted over computer networks without loss. When a container file is received, it is unpacked - from a “regular” file, an HFS or HFS+ file with two branches is obtained. This is troublesome and inconvenient for most users. Therefore, Apple currently recommends that software developers not use the resource fork of HFS and HFS+ files, but instead create separate resource files in which all necessary resources are located exclusively in the data fork. For example, a new type of Mac OS X font files with the .dfont extension are, in fact, ordinary font files, all of whose resources have been transferred to the data fork. In addition, programs for Max OS X should be created according to a new ideology that takes into account these changes in the organization of resource storage [see. "Bundles"].
In addition to the resource fork and the data fork, each file contains additional attributes called Finder attributes. Attributes are recognized and processed by the Finder when displaying information about a given file or attempting to open (print) it.
Mac OS X has reduced the number of attributes processed by the Finder. This list now includes:
Bundle bit
Invisible bit
Codes of the file type and file creator (type & creator),
The original file icon (custom icon).
Attributes that are no longer supported by Findre"OM:
Location of the icon on the Table,
Form for displaying information about the file (view),
Label.
Perhaps the most important and most specific attributes are the file creator and file type. They help Finder make the right decision when opening (printing) files.
When we try to open a file program, everything is clear for Finder: we just need to run this program, and then it itself knows what to do.
When opening a document file, you have to solve a more complex problem. Finder first checks the code that created the document. If the desired program is available on this computer, it starts and opens the specified document. The logic of this behavior is obvious: the “author” of the document knows best how to work with it.
If the computer does not have the program that created the document, then the file type code is checked. If there are several programs that can work with files of this type, one of them is launched. For example, many text editors work with simple text files, graphic files or image files, several graphics viewing or editing programs work, and so on.
If there is not a single program that the system knows that can work with documents of this type, a dialog box is called up in which you are asked to independently select the appropriate one. If the program you specified successfully opened the document, the system remembers this and launches it immediately next time.
Storing information about the file type inside the file itself has an important advantage: no renaming of the file can change its type, that is, the essence of the file does not depend on its name.
Mac OS X File System and File Formats
FAT. One of the first file systems, which appeared along with PC computers and the DOS system in 1981. Essentially, it is a simple table that records where a file is located on disk. Hence the name: File Allocation Table - file allocation table.
FAT32. The FAT system imposed restrictions on the maximum file and disk size - no more than 2 Gb. By the mid-90s, with the development of computers, these restrictions needed to be expanded. This is how the new FAT32 system appeared. Now the file size limit is 4Gb, and the disk size limit is 2Tb. But, according to the operating principles, it was still the same old FAT, i.e. table. Currently, FAT32 (like NTFS, which is discussed below) is the main file system of modern Windows computers.
HFS (Hierarchical File System - hierarchical file system). She was born almost together with the first poppies in 1985. In HFS, each file consists of two parts, the so-called resource fork and data fork. A data branch is the actual content of a file, such as text, image, video, or audio. The resource branch contains various service information about the file: dates of creation and editing, information about the program creator, file icon, and if this file is a program, then the code used.
HFS+ By the end of the 90s, Mac users faced the same problems as users of the FAT system, and in 1998 Apple released a new version - HFS+, in which all the restrictions that interfered with life and work were removed. The number of possible characters in the file name has changed from 32 to 255, and the maximum allowed file size and used disk has reached 8Eib. Exbibite is 2 to the 60th power, and to understand what this prohibitive figure means, let's say that the maximum disk size on a Mac exceeds the maximum size in the FAT32 system by four million times! Today, HFS+ is the main file system on Apple computers.
NTFS (New Technologi File System) is a new file system developed by Microsoft to replace the FAT family. Unlike primitive FAT, NTFS is a complex file writing algorithm. The main advantage of the system is reliability and the ability to recover from failures.
Now, having familiarized ourselves with the various types of file systems, we simply cannot help but ask the quite expected question: “what happens if you remove the disk from the Mac and attach it to the PC?” The answer to this question is a simple axiom that should probably always be applied in matters of Mac and PC compatibility: Windows is practically not compatible with Mac OS X, but Mac OS X is very well compatible with Windows.
This means that a Mac disk with HFS+ will not be recognized by Windows and will be perceived as unformatted. Although, there are no hopeless situations - with the help of certain commercial programs, such as MacOpen, a Mac disk can theoretically, although not without difficulty, be read on a PC.
But connecting a PC drive to a Mac is quite simple. Mac OS allows you to read disks in FAT and FAT32 format, and with the advent of Mac OS X 10.3, NTFS disks as well. A disk means any storage medium - it can be an internal or external hard drive (hard drive), a flash card, or a regular floppy disk. When connected, an icon of the new disk will appear on the desktop, and you can work with it in the same way as with the others. However, for NTFS drives there is still a significant limitation - on a Mac they are connected exclusively in the so-called read-only mode. This means that you will be able to view the disk structure, open and copy files to your disks, but you will not be able to save them, or write new files to such a disk.
PC users will be curious and useful to know that the name of the PC disk that you will see when connecting is the name that was given to it when it was created (formatted). On Macs, there is no drive letter, such as D or C. The drive is always identified by its name, and if it is a PC drive, what is called a volume label in Windows will be used as the name. Therefore, instead of drive D, we will get the SYSTEM or ARCHIVE drive, or the terrible default name from Windows, like FGHYJN009890.
A freshly purchased disk is always formatted in all file systems before starting work. Mac disks are usually formatted as HFS+ (another modern name is Mac OS Extended Journaled) - this is the “native” file system of Macs. Constantly using various compatibility mechanisms with other file systems will not add efficiency to the Mac. In addition, you cannot install Mac OS X on anything other than HFS+. If you need to format external media that is intended to be connected to different systems, format it as FAT32 (MS DOS File System). This will make the disk universal.
To work with disks, you can use the Disk Utility program included with Mac OS. It is located in ApplicationsUtilities. This is a comprehensive program that allows you to perform all the basic work with disks: splitting the disk into several logical ones, formatting, healing the disk if any failure occurs, and even creating a RAID array. In the vast majority of cases, the functions of this utility will be sufficient for you.
File Type Determination
Now it’s worth making a lyrical digression and talking a little about one historical feature of HFS+. The operating systems that currently exist date back decades, and their subsequent versions are improved and expanded upon the old ones. For example, Windows first appeared in 95, but, in reality, it is the heir to an even older system - DOS, developed for the very first PCs, and the UNIX family of systems dates back almost to the time of the first flights into space.
There was also such a “dinosaur” in the Mac family; now it is called Mac OS Classic. But, instead of innovation and improvement, Apple developed a new system - Mac OS X, essentially writing it from scratch. So, among the elders around it, Mac OS X is just a young girl - its first versions appeared only in 2000. When developing the new system, Apple had to consider compatibility issues both with the old Mac OS to ensure the transition of old users, and with Windows to attract new ones from the dominant platform.
To determine the file type, the system uses three different approaches at once. In the HFS system, as described above, any file consists of two parts: the contents of the file and information about the file type. This information is stored in a separate place - a resource fork in the form of a special text label. This is the fundamental difference from Windows, where the file type is determined by the name extension. There is a significant advantage to Apple's approach - no matter how you change the file name, you will not be able to change its membership of one type or another, minimizing the risk of an accidental error.
However, the described approach also has a drawback. Popular Internet file transfer protocols do not support HFS+. When you send a file via email, the file type information will disappear along with the resource thread. This means that you can send Mac files over the Internet only when using special Mac archives.
When creating Mac OS X, Apple took care of this problem by introducing into the system a mechanism for determining the file type using an extension, the same as in Windows. Mac OS X recognizes PC file types perfectly. But, unlike PC, where the name extension cannot be more than three letters, the system allows the use of extensions consisting of more characters. This significantly increases the information content of the file name and allows you to use the correct abbreviations. For example, the popular image formats jpg and tif are actually called JPEG and TIFF - and the system understands both spellings. Apple takes advantage of the new features and gives its own files quite informative name extensions: .pages - a document created in the Pages editor from the iWork kit, dspproj - a DVD disc project created in DVD Studio Pro, etc. Thus, Mac OS X determines the file type using both the old Classic approach, to ensure continuity with older Macs, and the PC approach, using name extensions, while expanding its functionality.
Thus, on Macs three approaches to determining the file type are implemented: the old HFS approach through the resource fork, the PC approach through a three-letter file name extension, and the new, improved approach through a multi-character file name extension
If desired, file extensions can be hidden. When saving the file, select the Hide Extension checkbox. To hide the extension of an existing file or files, press Command-Option-i with the files selected and select the Hide Extension checkbox in the Name & Extension column.
File formats
Application files.app
Programs that run under Mac OS X have app extensions. (from the word application). The application extension is hidden from the user's eyes, and you only see the name of the program itself. But Mac OS X cannot run Windows programs, despite an excellent understanding of PC data files - text, images, music. But the inability to run applications on Windows has a huge advantage - the evil viruses worms and Trojans that ruin the lives of almost all PC users are completely harmless on Macs.
Pkg: files with secret
Pkg (from the word Packages) are software distributions. Double-clicking will launch the installer program, which will install the new application on your computer. But the secret is that packages is not a file at all. This is a folder presented as a single file, inside which program distributions are hidden. Try an experiment: click on any pkg file while holding down the Cntrl key, or right-click if you have a two-button mouse. A context menu will appear in which you will see the Show Package Contents item, select it, and the contents of this folder will open in a new window. These will be the distribution files.
Why is this necessary? Packages are used to hide unnecessary service files from the user. It is much more convenient when the distribution package of the program is not a folder with a hundred or two incomprehensible files, among which you still need to find the name setup or install, but one single file with a clear name. In addition, files from Packages do not participate in the search, that is, they do not litter the search results with meaningless file names.
Creating your own Package is very simple: make a new folder, place your files there, then rename the folder by adding .pkg at the end of the name. Mac OS X will ask if you want to change the extension (this question is always asked when changing the extension), after which the folder will be converted into a single file with an open box icon. Of course, in order to make a working distribution, certain files must be placed there, otherwise it will just be files hidden from the user's eyes in a folder presented as one package.
Packages is a whole technology for hiding files, and .pkg is not the only one of its kind. Projects such as iDVD and DVD Studio Pro are saved in this package. By the way, the .app type mentioned above is also Packages. Each program is one (!) single file, and not thousands of files scattered in different directories throughout the disk, as happens in Windows. To verify this, follow the described procedure for viewing the contents of Packages by clicking on any program in the Applications folder - the Contents folder with many files of this program will open. However, during normal operation you do not see them, and they do not interfere in any way.
Disk images. Images
A very popular solution on Macs for a long time is dmg and img disk images. img was used in the Classic system, and with the advent of Mac OS X, a newer dmg format is used, although the old one is also supported.
What a disk image is is much easier to show than to tell. Double-click on such a file with the mouse, after which a new disk icon will appear on your Desktop, as if you had just connected a new disk to your Mac. You can use such a virtual disk in the same way as a regular external disk - view, edit and delete files, copy and move them to your “real” disk.
Disk images are mainly used to distribute programs over the Internet. And here we cannot fail to mention the second method of installing programs on a Mac. If, when you look at the mounted disk, you do not find the pkg installation file, then most likely you are seeing the program itself. Just drag it into the Applications folder, and that's it, the installation is complete.
To create your own disk image, use the already mentioned Disk Utility program.
Archive files
For the convenience of transferring files over the network and saving disk space during long-term storage, archives are used. An archive is a file that contains other files in a specially compressed form. To create and read archives, special programs are used - archivers and unpackers.
The most common unpacker on Macs is a free program Stuffit Expander . This is an extremely useful application that opens almost all known archives, encoded files, and disk images. The most popular archives on Macs are archives created using the Stuffit program from the Alladin company (not to be confused with Stuffit Expander - this is only a free version, exclusively for unpacking, not creating archives):
Sit is the most common archive among Macs,
Sitx is a relatively recent new version of the sit format that provides better compression
Sea is a self-extracting version of the sit archive for the Classic system.
In addition to the ones listed, Stuffit Expander does an excellent job with other archives: rar, zip, as well as Unix formats, gzip, tar, gz, bzip.
Encoded files
Extensions .bin and .hqx. A dying technology, however, you may still encounter such files. These formats were specially invented for transferring Mac files over the Internet and to other platforms, to solve the problem described above, when a resource fork was lost during transfer and an important part of the file disappeared. Therefore, to avoid losses, special encoding of one or more files was used. In this case, the data, unlike an archive, is not compressed, so the size of such an encoded file may be even larger than the total volume of content. For unpacking, you can again use Stuffit Expander.
Text files
The Mac uses the same text document formats as the PC.
Txt - simple text file
Rtf - formatted text.
If you have MS Office for Mac installed, you can work with .doc files. However, there are alternative word processors for Mac, coming from the worlds of Unix and Linux, that allow you to work with doc files.
Pages is a file created in the Pages program from the new Apple iWork package.
The PDF format and working with it deserve a separate article, so it will be brief. To work with files in pdf format on a PC, Adobe Acrobat is usually used, but for Mac OS X this is an internal, “native” format for the system. It stores most of the service information and graphics in this format. You can view such a file using the built-in Preview program, and you can create your own pdfs in Mac OS X from any program that has a print function.
Difficulties
Difficulties often arise with files downloaded from the Internet. A typical question on the forums: “I downloaded a file with such and such an extension - what should I do with it?” But what you download from the Internet is usually more than one single file; simply, in order not to download each one separately, they are combined in one way or another into one archive. Packages is not suitable for this, because it is a folder with files, and if it is hosted on a Windows server, then you will actually see a folder. This technology only works on Macs. That's why the files are archived.
An incomprehensible file was downloaded from the Internet. Try dragging this file onto the Stuffit Expander icon. If it is an archive, it will recognize and unpack it. In any case, you should start finding out with this program.
A file downloaded from the Internet or received by mail may lose its extension along the way, and its icon in this case will look like a white piece of paper. If you can guess what the file is, or can ask the owner of the file, try renaming the stranger by adding the appropriate extension. You can also try opening the file by dragging it onto the icons of various programs while holding down the Command key. This procedure will force the program to try to open the file, even if it has the wrong extension or is completely absent.
The topic is well covered, but for me, as a newcomer to the world of Mac OS X, it is another small discovery. The question is related to one small problem - the choice of file system for flash drives.
For a Windows + Linux pair, the usual solution is the NTFS file system. Both operating systems work fine with it - read + write.
For a Mac OS X + Linux pair, this choice will not work, since NTFS in Mac OS X has read-only support. To record, you need to install third-party software, such as Paragon. This is not a solution - native support is needed on both systems.
The solution is the ExFAT file system. On Mac OS X it has support out of the box. There is no out-of-the-box support on Linux - but the problem can be solved by installing additional packages (as almost always).
Moreover, they write on the Internet about the ExFAT system as originally created for flash drives. That she knows how to take care of flash drives and supports sizes larger than 4Gb.
Everything is fine - I put it on both of my flash drives: Apacer 8Gb and Transcend 16Gb. I'll start with the more complex one - the Linux system.
ExFAT - installation on Linux
To enable file system support in Linux, you need to install a couple of packages -
And . It was this fact that gave me the reason to write this short review.That's it - the job is done. Now I’ll format the flash drive for the ExFAT file system in Linux.
To do this, I first find where it is located in the file system (in my case this is the device
- this is a task for a flash drive name as a device.Formatting occurs in literally a couple of seconds, you don’t have to wait. The first flash drive is ready and the formatting operation is completed under Linux.
ExFAT - formatting for Mac OS X
As I mentioned above, Mac OS X has native support for the ExFAT file system. That is, you don’t have to install anything additional - everything is ready out of the box.
Operations on formatting drives and other actions with hard drives are performed in the standard “Disk Utility” utility.
I insert the second flash drive and launch “Disk Utility”:
It’s not difficult to understand how this utility works, but I’ll briefly describe it.
On the left there is a window with all the connected disks that the utility was able to detect.
On the right, in the “Erase” tab, you can configure and perform formatting (in Mac OS X terminology, formatting is called “Erase”). In the “Format” list, select the desired file system (by the way, the choice is not rich).
In the “Name” list, select the disk that will be formatted. There is also a button of the same name “Erase” to start formatting.
Below is an informative (I was pleasantly impressed by the volume and quality of information presented in it) window in which you can see all the information on the connected disk. The attentive reader will notice that my flash drive is already formatted in ExFAT - I did the review “hot on the heels”.
In principle - that's all. All that remains is to press the “Erase” button and my flash drive will be formatted under the ExFAT system.
If I open it in Finder, I can now both read from and write to it.
Conclusion
So “unexpectedly” I solved the problem of flash drive compatibility for Mac OS X and Linux. Moreover, this ExFAT system is a Microsoft development, so there are no problems with its support in Windows at all.
And if we take into account the careful way of handling flash drives promised by the creators of ExFAT, then this solution has no price at all.
Chris Rawson
The vast majority of USB flash drives you buy come in one of two formats: FAT32 or NTFS. The first format, FAT32, is fully compatible with Mac OS X, although with some drawbacks, which we'll discuss below. If the flash drive is formatted as NTFS, which is the default Windows file system, then you will have to reformat the flash drive because Mac OS X does not work with NTFS files (at least without additional effort on your part, which is beyond the scope of this article). this article).
How can you find out what format the USB flash drive you just bought is in? Connect the flash drive to your Mac and launch the Disk Utility application, which is located in the Utilities folder (in Applications). Your new flash drive should appear in the left column. Then click the “Partition” button and information about the disk and its format will appear in the tab.
If the format of the flash drive is MS-DOS (FAT) or, less likely, ExFAT, then leave everything as is and don’t worry anymore. If the flash drive is in NTFS format, then you will have to reformat it to another format, otherwise it will not be fully compatible with Mac OS X.
Disk Utility gives you the ability to use several file formats to reformat your flash drive. Reformatting a flash drive using Disk Utility is very simple. First you need to select the number of partitions on the flash drive (usually one partition), then select the file system format from the list and click the “Apply” button. We remind you that this will result in the loss of all information on your flash drive, so think carefully before acting.
Disk Utility offers you five different file system formats for OS X Lion. Unless you have some extraordinary file system requirements, you can safely ignore two of them: Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled) and Free Space. We will talk about the advantages and disadvantages of the other three formats below.
Mac OS Extended (Journaled) - This is the default file system format for Mac OS X disks.
Advantages: A flash drive formatted this way gives you full compatibility with Mac. It will support any version of OS X Lion without any restrictions.
Flaws: A PC running the Windows operating system can read files from such a flash drive, but will not be able to write to it. If you only work with a Mac, then this is not a problem, but if you need to transfer data from a PC to a Mac using this flash drive, it will be impossible.
MS-DOS (FAT) - This is what Disk Utility calls the FAT32 file system.
Advantages: FAT32 is compatible with every computing system on the planet. A flash drive formatted in this way will allow you to easily transfer files from Mac to PC and vice versa. In addition, you can copy files from gaming systems such as PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii to such a flash drive. Almost all cameras and video cameras support the FAT32 file system. This is the most versatile file system, so new flash drives are usually formatted this way.
Flaws: FAT32 does not support files larger than 4GB. This is the biggest drawback. Additionally, you won't be able to create a bootable disk for your Mac using this format.
ExFAT - This is a new file system format and is supported by Mac OS X 10.6.5 and later.
Advantages: exFAT has many of the same benefits as FAT32 when it comes to sharing files between Mac and PC. The advantage of this file system over FAT32 is that exFAT supports files larger than 4GB, so if you need to transfer large files from Mac to PC and vice versa, then this file system format is suitable for your flash drive.
exFAT is supported by the following operating systems:
- Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6.5 and above)
- OS X Lion
- Windows XP SP2 or later (with additional updates to support exFAT)
- Windows Vista SP1 or later
- Windows 7
Flaws: As a relatively new file system format, exFAT is not supported by earlier versions of the Mac OS X operating system (anything prior to version 10.6.5), or versions older than Windows XP SP2. If your Mac or PC is not very old, then this is not a problem. But the problem is that most consumer electronics (cameras, camcorders and game consoles) do not support the exFAT format.
Conclusion
We tried to tell you as fully as possible about file system formats for flash drives. What's in the bottom line?
If you are absolutely sure that you will work only from a Mac, then use Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
If you need to exchange files between Mac and PC larger than 4GB, then choose exFAT.
In all other cases, it is most rational to use the MS-DOS (FAT) format, better known as FAT32.
