New External USB HDD - FAT32 or NTFS?

Well...

When I looked at the bottom of their FEATURES PAGE, it was not listed. Go figger...

 

I believe, with any of these Mac-based products... the limitations may be in the FileSystems they can actually image, not so much in the FileSystems they can save those images in. The Mac supports exFAT as far as a FileSystem is concerned without limitation... I should be able to save any kind of file to that FileSystem.

 

There are drivers to read/write NTFS, from Paragon and others. https://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac/index.html.

 

Scott,

IMHO at first your request should be better detailed...system (complete) backup or only data ?

I have both Windows and Mac machines and for this last, I use Carbon Copy Cloner as system backup tool.

For the backups in Windows and Mac I use different hard-disks as, in principle, I wouln't mix Windows & Mac backups.

But, if you cannot afford to have more than 1 drive, then I'd recommend to multi-partition it with an MBR scheme, and with an ex-FAT partition for Windows and HFS+ partitions for Mac backups...

 

You are correct, I could have been clearer as to the type of backup I was interested in, but in a subsequent post I actually did refer to imaging software...

In any case, thanks for your feedback.

 

Hey guys, I have a followup question...

Having decided to format my 5TB external USB HDD with the exFAT file system I started a full format (not a quick format) some time ago. It has now been running for over 5 hours, indicating just 2% completion!!!
At that rate it could take days to complete the format. .....should I abort the format?

 

You needed to do no more than a QUICK Format... 5tB will take a long time to write the entire surface (really no need to do that).

 

Thanks Froggie. I cancelled the full format and did a quick format, which just took a minute or so. Btw, I accepted the default cluster allocation size, hope that works out well for MR backups...

 

The QUICK format is always fine as long as you know the disk you're using is in good shape (and yours is new). A FULL format will check every sector on that disk for errors after removing the FileSystem... that takes a loooooong time.

The DEFAULT Cluster size for exFAT is 128kB per Cluster instead of 4kB per Cluster when using NTFS. That's pretty inefficient for small files (but will still work fine) but will work just fine for large backup images. If you want to get into the same Cluster ballpark as NTFS DEFAULT formatting, redo your QUICK exFat but use the DropDown and select 4kB instead of the 128kB.

Reflect images NTFS partitions TO and restores FROM exFAT formatted partitions just fine (just tested it using one of my UFDs formatted as exFAT with 4kB Clusters)...

 

Froggie, thanks for that info. Since this exFAT-formatted external drive will just be used for our image backups (PC & Mac) I left the cluster size as is (default).