How to Format Transcend Hard Drive for Mac and Windows?

➢ Why format Transcend hard drive for Mac and Windows?
➢ Choose a file system for both Windows and Mac
➢ How to: format Transcend hard drive for Mac and PC in Windows

Why format Transcend hard drive for Mac and Windows?

Want to use Transcend hard drive for both your Windows PC and your Mac? As a matter of fact, these platforms use different File Systems by default. Windows uses NTFS and Mac OS uses HFS and they're incompatible with each other. Therefore, you need to format the hard drive to work with both Windows and Mac if you want to use it for both Mac and PC.

Choose a file system for both Windows and Mac

If you want to format Transcend hard drive for both Mac and Windows PC use, you can format it to FAT32 or exFAT. These two file systems can be used in both Windows and Mac. However, which one is better?

If your hard drive is more than 2TB and you need to store a file more than 4GB, you can choose exFAT. However, it is less compatible. As for FAT32, it is more compatible. Besides Mac and Windows PC, it is also compatible with various devices like Xbox One, PS3, PS4, etc. However, a single file stored on FAT32 hard drive cannot be larger than 4GB and the volume has 2 TB restriction.

These two file systems have their own advantage and disadvantages. You can choose it based on your own situation.

How to: format Transcend hard drive for Mac and PC in Windows

According to some users, Transcend hard drive cannot be detected in Mac sometimes. Don’t worry! You still can format it in Windows.

Format Transcend hard drive via Disk Management

1. Connect the disk drive to your Windows PC. Open the Disk Management by typing "disk management" in Windows Search box.

2. Right-click on the partition of the external drive that needs formatting and select the Format option.

3. In the next screen, select the exFAT or FAT32 File System and click OK to start the format.

Tip: As you may know, if you want to format Transcend hard drive to FAT32, the size of the drive cannot be larger than 32GB.

Format Transcend hard drive via freeware

To have a better experience to format hard drive, you can use a free partition manager, AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard. It can support many file systems like NTFS, exFAT, Ext2, Ext3, Ext4, FAT32. And it doesn’t have the 32GB size limitation when to format hard drive to FAT32. The best part is that it is free and easy to use.

Free download the partition manager  and see how to format Transcend hard drive for Mac and PC in a Windows-based computer.  

2. Right-click the Transcend hard drive which needs formatting and select Format Partition.

3. Select the FAT32 or exFAT as its File System and enter a partition label if you like. Then click OK to continue.

4. At last, click Apply to execute the process.

Conclusion

To format Transcend hard drive for Mac and PC, you can choose either exFAT or FAT32 depending on your requirement for the drive. Besides, AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard also enables you to make bootable media, create new partition, clone hard drive.