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I have a laptop that installed with hackintosh (OSX 10.7) and Windows 7. I already created with 3 partitions with GUID partition table. Mac using Extended (Journaled), and windows 7 using NTFS.

The question is, if I want to create third partition, which can be read and also write by both OS,which filesystem should I use?

p.s.: I heard about NTFS-3G for mac that can utilize NTFS volume, but it is paid software. I prefer change the partition filesystem rather than using the software.

Additional Information: My laptop is using HDD, and the last partition sized about 160GB.

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  • There is a way to natively have OS X read/write NTFS. You can go with another file system, but then you run into file size limits. I know this is a vague comment with "there is a way" but you might need to google around for "enable native ntfs mac" and find a walkthrough that works for you. – Raystafarian Mar 6 '12 at 15:26
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Windows7 supports the following on-disk formats:

  • FAT16 (for floppy disks only)
  • FAT32
  • EFS (commonly called ExFAT)
  • NTFS
  • CDFS (for CD/DVDs only).

Your best bet is probably to go with FAT32 for partitions of less than 4GB or EFS/EXFAT for partitions above this limit.

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FAT32 and exFAT will work between them.

exFAT can be used where the NTFS file system is not a feasible solution, due to data structure overhead, or where the file size limit of the standard FAT32 file system (without FAT+ extension) is unacceptable.

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  • "exFAT (Extended File Allocation Table) is a proprietary file system designed especially for flash drives" is it okay to apply it on HDD? – imsus Mar 6 '12 at 11:08
  • For sure, HDD's aren't that choosy anyway. – Maarten Bodewes Mar 6 '12 at 12:26

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