exFAT or NTFS

WD External and Portable SSD External SSD for Windows
1

I just purchased a WD MyBook external hard drive which is formatted in exFAT. I currently have Windows 10 for my HP laptop. Which format should I use? I have never reformatted a hard drive before. Is this something that is not too difficult for a non tech person to do? I do know reformating will erase all the current files off of the drive, is there any way that I can save the files that came with this?

What are the pros and cons of these formats?

TY

2

You can leave the drive as exFAT formatted. Which later you can also use the drive on Mac or Android or Linux systems.

3

It primarily depends on the devices you plan to connect to your external hard drive.

1. NTFS

NTFS is the default file system for the Windows operating system. It offers advanced features that exFAT does not, such as journaling (crash protection), file-level encryption, disk encryption, partition shrinking (to resize your storage spaces), and compression (to squeeze files and folders down to save drive space).

NTFS is widely used on both internal and external storage devices for Windows. However, it is read-only on Mac and Linux. Specifically, if you format your hard drive to NTFS, you will need to use a third-party driver like iBoysoft NTFS for Mac or Mounty to enable write support on a Mac (such as deleting files or transferring files from your Mac to the NTFS drive).

2. exFAT

exFAT is a lightweight format (or file system, to be more technical). It lacks advanced features like journaling (crash recovery), file-locking encryption, or file shrinking. However, it works flawlessly right out of the box with Android, Mac, and Windows. This makes it the absolute best choice for USB flash drives, external SSDs, and digital camera SD cards.

It’s not difficult to reformat the external hard drive. (You’re correct, reformatting will cause all existing files to get lost, but you can copy them to your computer before performing the format, then copy them back to the WD hard drive.) Read also: How to format an external drive for Mac and Windows