It should not be used for devices which need to be written to by Mac OS X systems or on media that is used in devices which are not compatible with NTFS. It has relatively simple technical underpinnings, and was the default file system for all Windows operating systems prior to Windows Because of its overly simplistic structure, FAT suffers from issues such as over-fragmentation, file corruption, and limits to file names and size.
FAT partitions larger than 32GB are generally not recommended as that amount of space starts to overwhelm FAT's overly simplistic organization structure. FAT is generally only used for devices with small capacity where portability between operating systems is paramount. When choosing a file system for a hard disk, FAT is not recommend unless you are using an older version of Windows.
Some early versions of Windows 95 used the FAT16 file system, which had even more technical issues and stricter limitations. It is recommended that FAT16 is never used on any modern media.
File system
It is also compatible with many media devices such as TVs and portable media players. The file system determines how the operating system manages data , how that data is stored and what sort of storage blocks are used on the hard drive. The file system organizes the data in such a way that the operating system can access and use what it needs, so if the file system isn't supported by the OS then it has no way to actually access and read the data.
In most cases, a drive with an unsupported file system won't even show up in Explorer or Finder unless you have set up your computer specifically to view the unsupported drives. This is why it's so tricky to format for Windows and Mac on the same hard drive.
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Assuming that you have newer computer models and are running recent versions of Windows and MacOS, the file systems used by your computers are incompatible. This is due largely to file system optimizations that were made with a specific operating system in mind, though competition between Microsoft and Apple may play a part in the proprietary nature of their respective OS file systems. With that said, there are a few ways to format a single external hard drive for both Mac and PC use without losing data or corrupting files.
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While Windows and macOS primarily use their respective proprietary file systems, both support other file systems as well. If you choose to do this, however, it is important to avoid changing the settings of the file system too much when you format.
By default, exFAT uses 32KB and KB data clusters when reading and writing respectively ; you can change this up to 32GB per function when choosing the formatting settings. MacOS doesn't support exFAT cluster sizes greater than KB , however, so if you increase the cluster size significantly then the drive will only be usable by your Windows computer.
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Additionally, some users have reported issues with reading exFAT drives on Windows PCs if the drives were formatted on a macOS computer; while this does not happen for all users, to avoid potential problems you may wish to format the drive on your Windows PC instead of your Mac. Instead of formatting the drive with a single file system, you can create two partitions on the drive and format each of those with a different file system. This will reduce the amount of space that's available for either Windows or Mac files, but it will ensure that you have storage space on your external drive that's in your preferred format regardless of which computer you're on at the time.
If choosing this route, make sure that you have sufficient space on the hard drive to make the dual partition worthwhile.
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Starting with a GB hard drive would only give you GB of space per partition, assuming that the partitions were equal; you may be better off going with at least a 1TB hard drive unless your storage needs are minimal. This can be done starting on either computer, using the operating system's disk management tools to create two partitions on the drive.
If you have any data currently on the drive you should back it up before partitioning, since it could become corrupted or deleted during the process. Either shrink the current volume and add a new partition on the empty space or create two partitions if the drive hasn't been formatted yet. If there is already a partition there but you wish to start fresh you can delete the current partition and treat the entire drive as empty space.
Each computer will only be able to access its appropriately-formatted partition, though disk management software should be able to see the other partition as well if needed.