Partitioning new hard drive for Windows and Mac

WD External and Portable SSD External SSD for macOS
1

I want my new hard drive to be capable of being used with both windows and mac OS systems. How do I achieve this?

2

Hi chicknhock,

You should change the file format of an external hard drive into exFAT format as it is supported by both, Windows as well as macOS. You may refer this KBA to reformat drive in exFAT file format:

3

I think the following 2 options are good.

1) Format the whole hard drive as exFAT

Windows and Mac computers can read and write files on exFAT hard drives out of the box.

On a Mac

  1. Plug in the hard drive and then open Disk Utility (search for it using Command + Space).

  2. Select your hard drive from the left menu, click Erase.

  3. Set Format to exFAT and Scheme to GUID Partition Map, click Erase.

On Windows

  1. Plug in the hard drive, then right-click the Start button and select Disk Management.

  2. Right-click your drive’s space and choose New Simple Volume (initialize as GPT if asked).

  3. Click Next until you reach the format settings.

  4. Change File System to exFAT.

2). Split the hard drive into 1 NTFS partition and 1 exFAT partition

The NTFS partition will be perfect for Windows features (like system backups). The exFAT partition will let you easily share files back and forth with your Mac.

Here is how to set up these two partitions:

  1. Open Disk Management, then right-click your new drive’s empty space and choose New Simple Volume.

  2. Choose the size you want for the first partition and click Next.

  3. Set the File System to NTFS, click Next, and click Finish.

  4. Right-click the remaining unallocated (black) space on the drive.

  5. Choose New Simple Volume again, use the remaining space, and set this File System to exFAT.

Your Mac will only be able to read files on the NTFS partition and copy them to the Mac. But it cannot move/copy new files to the NTFS partition, save the modified files or delete any data without installing extra software.

Read also: Fix Mac Unable to Write to an NTFS drive