Using My Passport back and forth between a Mac and PC..help?

WD External Drives External Drives for Mac
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ThePizzaMatrix wrote:

Bullzie wrote:

There is another option here.  I ran into this exact problem but there is a new format ( exFAT) that is the replacement for FAT32 that works natively with Mac and Windows.  Mac OS X added exFAT support in version 10.6.5 on November 10, 2010.     OS X 10.6.5 can read, write, and create exFAT partitions.  It is also supported natively in Windows Vista SP1 and above but Microsoft has a Windows XP SP2 driver available.  The big thing to not here is that exFAT does not have the same file size limitations as FAT32, it has the same file size limitations as NTFS.  I have been running it for over a month now with my MacBook Pro and Win7 Laptop and on the systems at school without any issue at all and best of all it doesn’t require any paid software to make it work.

 

Bullzie

exFAT does work as a file system for both Windows and Macintosh, but only the most current systems are able to recognize that file system.

 

A Mac that runs 10.6.5 (Snow Leopard) needs a lot of updates, and a lot of Mac users run 10.5, so exFAT does no good for them. On Windows exFAT can only be recognized by Vista SP1 onwards. XP SP2 can work with exFAT as well, but it needs an additional update from Microsoft…

 

For a future generation exFAT may become the new universally standard FS (As FAT32 used to be)… But for now, integration is dim and relative.

 

However, if we are dealing ONLY with modern (And updated) computers, then yes, it is a perfect solution. 

    • *> I think the thing that gets me about this is how it really isn’t presented as an option anywhere.  I stumbled across it by almost by accident.  Even when I did a search of this board exFAT doesn’t even come up.> I really don’t think the claim about modern and updated systems is entirely accurate.  It works with XP with a free Microsoft driver update and natively above that then the PC side is well covered in my opinion.  Now, for the Mac side of things, if you are already at OS X 10.5 then by my math the $35 to upgrade to 10.6 seems like money well spent to solve a rather annoying problem.  This is my opinion only.  I am in no way trying to provoke any sort of argument over this…just to present it as a solution to this headache.> Overall, I think some awareness that this is a potential solution would be nice.  Even if WD included it in a FAQ somewhere.> Bullzie