View Full Version : For new video project - how to format new hard drives? exFAT?


Adi Head
March 14th, 2017, 06:36 PM
Hi. I'm starting a video project. Will be shooting this weekend.
Got two new WD 4TB USB external drives to store the footage.
Will be shooting HD ProRES with a Blackmagic pocket cinema camera and HD with a Canon 5D mark iv.
I will be most likely editing on my Windows 10 PC, but would be happy to keep the drive compatible with mac OS for both read and write.

After reading stuff online, it seems to me the best option is to format the drives to exFAT file system.
Are there any reasons why I should contemplate formatting otherwise that I'm overlooking?

Thanks

Seth Bloombaum
March 14th, 2017, 08:56 PM
...I will be most likely editing on my Windows 10 PC, but would be happy to keep the drive compatible with mac OS for both read and write...
exFAT is the only choice for these needs. You'll need to format it using a Mac.

I've not used this format with Win10, but it worked read/write with previous Windows versions, and works read/write with MacOS.

Adi Head
March 14th, 2017, 09:17 PM
You'll need to format it using a Mac.
So if I format on Windows, it won't be able to read/write with a mac?
In the few sources I researched there was no mention of this, but I'll trust you : )

David Stoneburner
March 15th, 2017, 07:05 AM
From my experience if you format NTFS on a PC the MAC usually can read it, it just can't write to it. So exFAT is the way to go for R/W on both systems. If you plan on just staying in the PC world than I would go NTFS. I just formatted an usb thumb drive for someone on a PC and was able to format it exFAT because I knew they were MAC and the file was over 4 gig.

Seth Bloombaum
March 15th, 2017, 10:50 AM
I'm a bit out of date on what formats can be performed with Win10, but exFAT for hard drives wasn't available in previous versions. Available formats for a thumb drive may be different, since FAT only can work up to 32GB, and exFAT is the standard format for a thumb/flash drive over 32GB.

DS is right - the default Win format of NTFS can be read by Mac, but not written to, unless you have a Mac software like Paragon NTFS (https://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac/), which works great!

Adi Head
March 22nd, 2017, 07:52 PM
Thanks all.
Ended up formatting exFAT : )