External exFAT Drive

6 respostas [Última entrada]
Aristophanes
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Joined: 10/05/2017

Is an external drive (e.g., a USB drive) formatted as exFAT using the GUID Partition Map fully compatible with Windows, macOS and GNU/Linux?

nadebula.1984
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Joined: 05/01/2018

For GNU/Linux, you need to install exfat-fuse (and optionally exfat-utils).

For Windows, you need at least Vista (already obsolete).

For OS X, I know nothing.

andyprough
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Joined: 02/12/2015

From what I'm reading, exfat is supposed to be read-write compatible with all Mac OS versions after "Leopard", which was apparently released in about 2007. My wife uses a Mac at work, and she never has problems with her exfat thumb drives when using it.

Aristophanes
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Joined: 10/05/2017

The GNU/Linux distribution that I'm using is Trisquel 8. Would I still need to install exfat-fuse? Also, what is exfat-utils?

macOS offers three exFAT scheme options: (1) GUID Partition Map, (2) Master Boot Record and (3) Apple Partition Map. Which is the best for compatibility across all three OSes?

nadebula.1984
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Joined: 05/01/2018

To install exFAT support, try this command in terminal:
sudo apt install exfat-fuse exfat-utils

For drives less than 2 TiB, you can choose either GPT or MBR. For drives greater than 2 TiB, you have to use GPT. Forget the rotten Apple's partition table.

loldier
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Joined: 02/17/2016

Why would you call APM "rotten"? Because it has Apple in its name?

APM is a historic partition scheme that only allows for partitions up to 2 TiB.

ExFAT is certainly rotten as well, because it was designed by Microsoft, right?

We should fight proprietary software and closed technologies but spreading biased FUD is not the way to do it IMHO.

loldier
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Joined: 02/17/2016

Yes. You need to install exfat-fuse and exfat-utils to have exFAT support in T8.

exfat_fuse_utils.png