The DataLocker comes pre-formatted in the NTFS format due to its superior performance, support, and capabilities for high-capacity hard drives.

Windows Users:
If you require a drive that can be used on multiple operating systems, you may need to reformat the drive in the FAT32 format.


Microsoft has eliminated support for FAT32 formatting for drives over 32GB so you must use a third-party tool for formatting. We recommend Swiss Knife or Rufus for this purpose.

Mac Users:
Mac OS users can read files from an NTFS formatted drive but cannot write files to an NTFS formatted drive. 
Mac OS users must reformat the drive with the FAT32 format in order to read and write to the drive.


The native Mac HFS format is also supported. Choose this file system if you will only be using the DataLocker drive on a Mac system.


The exFAT filesystem also allows cross-platform compatibility and can be read and written by both Mac OS and newer Windows versions.

Linux Users:
Linux users may use the DataLocker without reformatting if they have an NTFS driver installed.


Here is an excellent tutorial explaining how to install the Linux NTFS driver:

http://www.howtoforge.com/ubuntu_edgy_eft_ntfs_ntfs_3g


If you can not use NTFS drives you must reformat the drive using the FAT32 format.

Below is a summary of the key differences between NTFS and FAT32.


"Article reprinted with permission of www.NTFS.com"


Criteria

NTFS

FAT32

Operating System

Windows NT
Windows 2000
Windows XP
Windows 2003 Server
Vista 32 and 64 Bit
Linux (with the driver installed)

DOS v7 and higher
Windows 98
Windows ME
Windows 2000
Windows XP
Vista 32 and 64 bit
Mac OS
Linux

File Limitations

Max Volume Size

2TB

2TB for some OS

Max Files on Volume

Nearly Unlimited

4194304

Max File Size

Limit Only by
Volume Size

4GB minus 2 Bytes

Max Clusters Number

Nearly Unlimited

4177918

Max File Name Length

Up to 255

Up to 255

 

File System Features

Unicode File Names

Unicode Character Set

System Character Set

System Records Mirror

MFT Mirror File

Second Copy of  FAT

Boot Sector Location

First and Last Sectors

First Sector and
Copy in Sector #6

File Attributes

Standard and Custom

Standard Set

Alternate Streams

Yes

No

Compression

Yes

No

Encryption

No

No

Object Permissions

Yes

No

Disk Quotas

No

No

Sparse Files

No

No

Reparse Points

No

No

Volume Mount Points

No

No

 

Overall Performance

Recoverability

Yes

No

Performance

Low on small volumes
High on Large

High on small volumes
Low on large

Disk Space Economy

Max

Average

Fault Tolerance

Max

Minimal