Formatting a USB stick is a simple operation, which however requires some attention in case you plan to use the portable drive on a PC and also on a Mac or Linux computer. The problem is the choice of the file system, which would be the formatting format, which is different depending on the computer used, be it a Windows PC or a Mac.
That of the file system is really a useless complication of computer science, which is not foreseen will be resolved shortly and with which we have to deal with if different computers are used, with different operating systems.
In particular, if you want to format a USB stick or an external disk to work only on Apple Mac computers, you must use the HFS + (Mac OS Extended) file system which on Windows PC and other computers does not work.
If instead you are using a Windows PC you can choose whether to format in Fat32 that on Mac works even if not perfectly or NTFS, which cannot be used on Mac (it works only in reading).
Luckily there is a file system that is compatible with all systems, called exFat, which then becomes the default choice with which to format USB drives, both sticks and external disks, to be able to use it on both PC and Mac .
READ ALSO: How to format USB sticks and disks: difference between NTFS, FAT32 and FAT
FAT32 and exFAT are the best file systems to format disks and USB drives because they can work with all operating systems by default .
FAT is an acronym for File Allocation Table, it is the oldest of the file systems, and is recognized by every operating system.
exFAT is the file system created specifically for USB drives and external disks.
The differences between Fat32 and exFat are related to speed, compatibility and capabilities or limitations.
First of all, on a drive or a memory formatted in FAT32, you cannot copy files larger than 4 GB while for exFat this limitation is not there.
Fat32 works on all computers, although it is not optimal for the Mac.
exFat, on the other hand, works on almost everything, but could give problems on mp3 players or Android devices and is therefore not the file system to be used for SD memory cards.
In general, exFat drives are faster at writing and reading data than FAT32 drives.
exFAT is therefore the best choice, if the intention is to use a portable drive with large files (such as HD movies or 3D projects) and if it must be connected to computers with different operating systems.
To format USB drives with exFAT or FAT32 format from a Windows PC, follow this simple procedure:
Open This PC in File Explorer (i.e. open any folder and then go to This PC )
Right-click on the USB drive and choose Format from the menu.
Under FileSystem, you can leave Fat32 or choose exFat.
Press on Format, also leaving the formatting fast.
On Windows PC, you can first execute some commands to clean and recover space on the USB stick to be formatted
To format a USB stick or external disk on Mac the procedure is:
Open Spotlight (press the Command + Space keys together or go to the Finder on the Go menu) and run the Disk Utility .
Choose the USB drive in the left menu.
Click on Initialize and choose exFAT in the format.
However, keep in mind that while exFAT is an excellent choice for using the same stick or external disk on both Mac and Windows, if you plan to use only Windows computers the best choice is always the NTFS format.
