reliable formatting seagate external drive Mac AND Windows read/write/search?
Hello, I have a 2014 MBP and am using Seagate Backup Slim external drives as local backup method for Time Machine. Also use these drives as standard data/document drives.
Each of my 3 drives (one formatted HFS+ for Time Line; one formatted HFS+ non-Time Line; and other NTFS with Paragon Mac driver) all work very well on my MBP.
However, I need to access them from my Office PC Win Vista PC as well. My University IT techs have unsuccessfully tried to install the Paragon driver available through Seagate that purportedly makes the 2 HFS+ drives read/write and Spotlight searchable. For whatever reason, on the PC the external drive shows up in Drivers and Printers, but not in My Computers, and the Paragon driver is listed for the drives but the Microsoft driver is installed and the techs cannot figure out how replace the Windows driver with the Paragon driver.
I am assuming the techs are not going to get this right and I need an informed and stable solution fast so I am turning to YOU folks, the real experts.
I have heard that I can simply format (erase and reformat) the HFS+ drives to exFAT format. Apparently, if the drive is exFAT formatted it will "work" with both my Mac and office PC.
Now, what I have also read a little about are issues of stability/integrity etc. under exFAT. Some have argued that exFAT drives are less "stable" over the long run and using the Paragon driver would be the better solution. Others have argued hogwash and in a few cases submitted the opposite, that the Paragon drivers are less trustworthy.
Thank you very much in advance!🙂
MacBook Pro with Retina display, Mac OS X (10.0.x)