If you want to use an external hard drive that can be used on both Mac and Windows computers, it’s recommended to use the exFAT file system.
exFAT is a file system that is supported by both Mac and Windows operating systems, as well as by other systems like Linux. This means that you can use the same external hard drive on a Mac and a Windows computer without any issues.
One of the advantages of exFAT is that it allows for large file sizes and partition sizes, which is useful if you want to store or transfer large files like video or music files. exFAT also supports file and folder names in various character sets, which is important if you want to use special characters in your file names.
It’s worth noting that if you plan to use the external hard drive primarily with a Mac, you can also use the Mac OS Extended (Journaled) file system, also known as HFS+, which is the default file system used by Mac computers. However, this file system is not natively supported by Windows, so you would need to install third-party software to read and write to the drive on a Windows computer. Using exFAT would eliminate the need for third-party software on Windows.
In summary, if you want to use an external hard drive on both Mac and Windows computers, it’s recommended to use the exFAT file system, as it is supported by both operating systems and allows for large file sizes and folder names in various character sets.