Formatting a USB Drive with NTFS?

Occasionally, I'll copy .mkv movies to a USB Drive to play on a Samsung Smart TV. Unfortunately, Samsung Smart TVs do not recognize Mac formatted drives. I tried using Disk Utilities to format a USB drive with (MS-DOS) FAT, but because of file size limitations I am unable to copy most movies to a USB formatted this way.

The only solution I found is to format the USB Drive with (MS-DOS) NTFS, but to do so I have to launch Parallels and use the Windows OS. Needless to say, doing so is a little time-consuming. Plus, I prefer to work in the Mac OS whenever possible. Are there any Mac utilities that will allow me to format a USB Drive with NTFS within Mac OS X Yosemite?

Posted on May 6, 2015 3:23 AM

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6 replies

Level 4

1,181 points

May 6, 2015 3:45 AM in response to Kelly Crossley

I've heard Paragon mentioned a lot, but haven't used it.

http://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac/features.html

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May 6, 2015 3:45 AM in response to RIFerrarr

Thanks! I'll check it out.

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Level 10

121,988 points

May 6, 2015 6:17 AM in response to Kelly Crossley

Did you try exFAT? It has a much larger file size limit and may work on the TV.

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Level 9

60,063 points

May 6, 2015 6:26 AM in response to Kelly Crossley

Paragon NTFS is the best of its type. I second the recommendation.

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May 6, 2015 8:41 AM in response to Barney-15E

X2 on the exFAT if it's an option. It's what I use for my windows data partition. Can write to from Mac/Pc Os and file sizes can be Enormous.

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May 6, 2015 10:49 AM in response to Barney-15E

Barney-15E wrote:

Did you try exFAT? It has a much larger file size limit and may work on the TV.

I tried. It didn't work.

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Formatting a USB Drive with NTFS?

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