File Systems HFS+ This is the principal file system of Mac OS X. It is a journalled, relatively modern file system that supports POSIX permissions, and features at least limited automatic defragmenting of files. Mac OS X is capable of mounting these volumes for reading and writing, and has full capabilities to utilize them. Mac OS X systems can also only boot from hard disks formatted in this system (as well as bootable optical media). Windows has no native support for this format, but third party tools such as MacDrive allow for limited read/write support on Windows systems. NTFS This is the current preferred file system of Windows (beginning predominance circa Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000, and including Windows XP).

Most Windows systems use principle partitions with this file system. This is a journalled file system with good support for large files.

We don't know when or if this item will be back in stock. WD 2TB Black My Passport for Mac Portable External Hard Drive - USB 3.0 - WDBP6A0020BBK. Here’s something your My Passport for Mac Quick Install Guide might not tell you: Hard drives usually come formatted in two different ways, one catering to Windows and one catering to Mac.

It should be noted that it does NOT support POSIX permissions or ownership. Mac OS X has read only support for this format. It has no capabilities to write to an NTFS drive.

Windows has complete read/write capabilities for this format. FAT32 FAT32 is a legacy file system in the Windows world. However, it is still widely used as almost all Flash-based drives use this format. Mac OS X supports this format for both reading and writing, as does Windows.

It has notable limitations, including difficulties with files of size larger than 4 GB. Also, as with NTFS, this file system does not support POSIX and permission / ownership errors could arise when files are moved back and forth between this file system and a POSIX-compliant file system. Ext2 Ext2 is a relatively modern filesystem that is used primarily in Linux environments. It features many of the same creature comforts as OS X, including a journal and the ability to use large files (e.g. Bigger than the 4 GB limit in FAT32). This file system is not natively supported in either OS X or Windows, but free extensions are available for both operating systems that allow basically full read/write utilization of this filesystem on both OS X and Windows.

The Mac OS implementation is available at Sourceforge; the Windows implementation is available here. Comparison Another important distinction that should be noted is that all of the above is based on disks mounted under the given operating system.

Limitations can be bypassed by serving a disk from a server for which the format is native. For instance, a Windows client that is accessing a served HFS+ disk that is served from a Mac OS X computer (a 'shared' disk across the network) can write to that disk if the server has granted permission. Likewise, while a Mac OS computer cannot write to an NTFS volume it mounts itself, it can write to an NTFS volume being served by a Windows computer. One important question that gets asked frequently at MacRumors is: how should I format my external device? Here are some suggestions, based on the above limitations of each filesystem. If the device will only be used on a Mac OS X computer, use HFS+. This will offer the most complete support for Mac OS X features.

If the device will only be used in Windows, use NTFS, for the same rationale. If the device will be mounted on both Windows and Mac computers, and you will not be using very large files (all files.

Click to expand.Look, I have already formated my passport for mac using HFS+, NTFS and FAT32 but when I connect it on a Windows Vista notebook, it detects the drive, but the icon doesnt appear. Its like: 'There IS a hard drive here. But I will not show you, da da da daaa!' I looked up many threads here, but no success. I saw in another forum that I should use a cable that has 2 USB ends, because Windows requires more power to make the hard drive to work. I thought: 'Thats insane. ' Its getting hard to make this piece of **** work.

You can't format a hard drive as all three of those filesystems unless you partitioned the hard drive. Nanostation m5 setup and configuration in mac sierra for station. And even if you did that, what you store in the partition that is formated as HFS+ will still not be visible to the Windows computer. I'm not sure if a hard drive that big can be formated as FAT32, but that is the file system that you want to format the drive as to be able to read and write from both Mac OS X and Windows. The 'for Mac' part of the brand is only for marketing purposes really. Any hard drive will work, you have the same Passport as the non-for-Mac version, but its just formatted with HFS+ out of the box. Look, I have already formated my passport for mac using HFS+, NTFS and FAT32 but when I connect it on a Windows Vista notebook, it detects the drive, but the icon doesnt appear.