Tuxera NTFS for Mac adds full read and write capability for Windows NTFS-formatted drives. Preserve what’s important Unexpected power cuts or unplugging a USB drive at the wrong time can cause data loss – or worse – damage the drive. Sep 19, 2011 The overwhelming majority of USB flash drives you buy are going to come in one of two formats: FAT32 or NTFS. The first format, FAT32, is fully compatible with Mac.
The file system compatibility is always a big issue between Mac and Windows. It's well known that by default, Windows uses NTFS, and Mac OS uses HFS, these file systems are not compatible with each other. Often switch between Mac and PC? Want to share one external hard drive between Mac and Windows? No worries! There are still ways to make external hard drive compatible with Mac and PC.
Two ways to make external hard drive compatible with Mac and PC
FAT32, exFAT and NTFS are three file systems for external drive in Windows, while NTFS is read-only on Mac. Therefore, based on these three file systems, we have two methods to make external hard drive compatible with Mac and PC.
Method 1: Reformat this external hard drive (not recommend)
1. Reformat it as FAT32
As the oldest file system among these three file systems, FAT32 is compatible with a majority of recent and recently obsolete operating systems, including Mac and Windows. However, FAT32 can only support files up to 4 GB in size and A FAT32 partition must also be less than 8 TB. Thus, unless every file we plan to store on the disk is less than 4GB in size, we'd better avoid this method.
2. Reformat it as exFAT
The exFAT file system can also work with Mac and Windows. It eliminates the two major deficiencies of FAT32, which has no limitation on partition size or file sizes. And exFAT external hard drive is faster that FAT32 at reading and writing data. It's a great way to share external hard drive between Mac and Windows.
Method 2: Use an NTFS driver for Mac
NTFS is the default file system on Windows. But due to technical reasons and copyright issue, macOS only enables NTFS read support, but doesn't enable write support. To make your Mac compatible writing on NTFS, you can install a professionalNTFS driver for Mac like iBoysoft NTFS for Mac.
iBoysoft NTFS for Mac - the easiest way to manage NTFS external hard drives on Mac
iBoysoft NTFS for Mac is a professional and easy-to-useNTFS mounter for Mac that can mount NTFS formatted external hard drives, USB flash drives, SD cards, memory cards, etc. in read-write mode on Mac, making NTFS compatible with both Mac and Windows. We can use this utility on macOS 10.15/10.14/10.13/10.12 and Mac OS X 10.11/10.10/10.9/10.8.
Aside from what mentioned above, iBoysoft NTFS for Mac is also a wonderful manager for NTFS external drives. With this tool, we can open, mount, unmount, repair, and erase NTFS drive on Mac natively. Also, you can use this tool to reformat other disk to NTFS on Mac natively.
Do everything with Windows drives on your Mac
Get reliable read-write compatibility for all NTFS-formatted USB drivesNow supports macOS Catalina!
WHY YOU NEED MICROSOFT NTFS FOR MAC BY TUXERA
When it comes to Windows NTFS-formatted USB drives, Macs are only built for reading. That means you can open files stored on those drives, but you can’t edit, copy, move, or delete those files using your Mac. To write files, you need an add-on NTFS-driver.
Microsoft NTFS for Mac by Tuxera is easy-to-use software that makes this all possible.
Use external USB drives previously formatted in Windows
Swap drives regularly between Windows PCs and Macs
Seamless data exchange when dual booting Windows and macOS/OS X
Easy file handling when running Windows through a virtual machine
Easily swap and change drives
Use the same external USB drives no matter what you use—Windows PCs or Macs. Microsoft NTFS for Mac by Tuxera adds full read and write capability for Windows NTFS-formatted drives.
Preserve what’s important
Unexpected power cuts or unplugging a USB drive at the wrong time can cause data loss – or worse – damage the drive. Our market-leading fail-safe technology keeps your videos, pictures, and other files intact, plus prevents drive corruption.
Wait less for file transfers
Microsoft NTFS for Mac by Tuxera provides fast, sustained file transfer speeds with our smart caching technology. That means less time waiting for files to save or copy between your USB drive and Mac.
![Ntfs Or Fat32 For Mac Network Drive Ntfs Or Fat32 For Mac Network Drive](/uploads/1/2/5/7/125754572/420664812.jpg)
Affordable one-time purchase
We offer a convenient, one-time purchase of €15 (US $15) per license, valid for the entire lifetime of the software. One license is valid for up to 3 personal, home computers. And all upgrades for standard retail purchases are free of charge. Read more about our licensing here.
Advanced features for technophiles
Our software is the only NTFS driver on the market to include support for NTFS extended attributes.
You also get Tuxera Disk Manager, a companion app that makes it easy to format, check, and repair NTFS drives.
See what they’re saying about Microsoft NTFS for Mac by Tuxera
- “…Once installed you can forget about it. It’ll do all the work in the background and not bug you about this and that, it just works.”—Damien Zander, AppDucate
- “I truly appreciate the customer-first service and, obviously, great products Tuxera provides.”—Brian from CO, USA
- “…It just works. Every time. I’m a developer by trade, and I can usually find fault in anything I use. I have nothing negative to say about NTFS for Mac.”—Patrick from OH, USA
- “It made the scariest part of going from PC to Mac go away.”—Shaun from CA, USA
- “…It works beautifully and completely transparently.”—David Weiss, Director/Editor/Colorist
- “…The perfect solution for any Mac user who needs simple and fast read and write access to files stored on NTFS formatted partitions on a Mac.”—Sergiu Gatlan, Softpedia
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