best format for external hard drive time machine

The former is a free tool with basic user interface but requires Java whereas the latter is a more advanced HFS+ reader with the rich interface but comes with a price tag.

Find the source code here) and HFS+ for Windows by Paragon are two popular softwares for Windows to read HFS, HFS+ and HFSX files systems. HFS Explorer from Cotacombae (Open Souce. However, you can export all your files from Time Machine backups to Windows manually with the software programs which can read drives formatted in HFS+ files system.Īlso Read: How to Fix Keyboard Typing Wrong Characters in Windows 10 Copying Time Machine Backups to Windows

Windows and OS X are two different platforms, technically we can only view all the Time Machine backups and its files using these tools, but we can not restore settings or applications. Luckily there are few such tools available in the market while some of them come with a price tag. The other way to restore Time Machine backups on Windows is using any third party tools which can read HFS, HFS+, and HFSX file systems. But formatting will delete all Time Machine backups permanently, and we don’t want to do this. The one way to connect your Time Machine backup drive to Windows is by formatting it in any of the Windows supported file system. Unfortunately, Windows only supports NTFS and FAT32 file systems, and it can not detect Mac formatted hard disks and disk images.

When I tried to connect my external hard drive, Windows failed to detect it since Mac formats the hard drive in HFS+ format while creating the first Time Machine backup.

Best format for external hard drive time machine