If you plan to use your external drive with computers that run both operating systems, you should consider a drive formatted with the exFAT file system.

Neither Apple File System nor HFS+ works with Windows, however. Any drive formatted with HFS+ (which includes most Mac-specific drives on the market today) will work just fine with a Mac that's running macOS High Sierra or later. There are many benefits to switching from HFS+ to the Apple File System, including better security thanks to native encryption, but the most important thing to note for external drive shoppers is backward-compatibility. It's simply called the Apple File System, and it's the first format to be across macOS products as well as the iOS ecosystem of iPads, iPhones, iPods, the Apple TV, and the Apple Watch. With the release of the macOS High Sierra operating system, Cupertino ditched its venerable Mac OS Extended file system, commonly abbreviated as HFS+, and switched to an entirely new file format.

Thunderbolt 3 and USB Type-C are the latest innovations in the external storage market, but before we get to them, we need to address a basic building block of hard drives that has always affected compatibility, and probably always will: the file system.Īn external drive's file system is the most important factor that determines whether or not it's readable by Macs, PCs, or both.

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