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General Discussion

Joseph Maza
Joseph Maza
9,184 Points
Posted by Joseph Maza
Joseph Maza
9,184 Points

External Hard Drive reformatting?

I have been doing some research on the next hard drive I'm going to buy. It looks pretty easy as far as reformatting it to be compatible with a mac. I also have a windows in the household as well. My question is since most of them come ready with NTFS should I reformat and partition the drive to have the Mac HSF+ and ExFAT/NTFS or should I download the Paragon driver so I don't need to partition it or would there be a benefit by partitioning it? Thank you in advance for you help!

1 Answer

Jennifer Nordell
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STAFF
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Jennifer Nordell
Treehouse Teacher
Jennifer Nordell
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree
Jennifer Nordell
Treehouse Teacher

Hi there, Joseph Maza ! In your case, you might be well served to partition that hard drive so that both your Mac and your Windows system can use it. You could then have one partition formatted as APFS (for Mac) and another formatted as NTFS (for Windows). Also, note that the Paragon driver is not compatible with APFS. So if you are running High Sierra or Mojave on that Mac, this is not an option for you.

Personally, I like partitions. I have a Windows machine with a good sized HDD, and a Mac Mini. But even on that Windows machine I have the drive partitioned. I do this to logically divide up major categories of apps and data. I don't take it to extremes. I have a partition for System, Work and Games, and one for Development.

Hope this helps! :sparkles:

Joseph Maza
Joseph Maza
9,184 Points
Joseph Maza
Joseph Maza
9,184 Points

Thank you. Sounds Like partition is the way to go! I appreciate the response!