FAT32 vs. Windows NTFS vs. Mac HFS vs. exFAT - best for backup?

[Sossity]

I have some external hard drives and backup duplicate external hard drives, ie; I have one for music, & then a duplicate backup, of which I do rotated backups every 6 months for offsite storage of the backups as discussed on here earlier this year.

I am now a bit undecided about which format would be best to use on all my external hard drives.

I use both Mac OS and Windows computers, & want my hard drives to be cross platform. Mac OS native format is a bit too specific, as it does seem that there are more windows computers out there in the wild than macs. And it seems that if I had to plug my hard drive into a computer that is not mine, it will more likely be a Windows machine than a Mac.

Another format for cross platform compatibility that I have liked & used so far is FAT32, but I do not like the 4GB file size limit, & it would be an ordeal for me to have to reformat, & re import my data onto an external that needed the 4GB file size limit lifted.

I have seen a bit about eFAT, but I have heard & maybe even read on here that it is not good, or too many bugs, & has not been around long enough to be stable.

So that would leave me with windows NTFS, which seems the most common modern format right now, but it is limited to just windows.

I have paragon NTFS installed on my mac to work with my NTFS drives. But then I think what if I have to plug them into a mac with out an NTFS driver?

And this leads me back to FAT32 for cross platform, but then I think what if I start getting files bigger than 4GB?

so I am torn between these 2 formats.

what would be the best strategy?

Should I have my external hard drives in each format? one in NTFS & the backup in FAT32? or just have them all in FAT32, & when & if I get file sizes bigger than 4GB, I will make a dedicated external hard drive in NTFS for files that are bigger than 4GB?

[NJRoadfan]

MacOS X comes with read-only NTFS support out of the box. The drives will mount automatically without any additional software, but you can't alter the contents. exFAT has full support in OS X 10.6.5 and newer, you can read and write to the drives out of the box with no additional software. It is fully supported by Windows Vista SP1 and newer. XP requires the linked update to see the drives: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/downl....aspx?id=19364 the only downside is outside of Windows and OS X, support for exFAT is minimal.

[JMP]

The best option is to use NTFS and get Paragon NTFS for Mac. As for using the drive on another Mac, how often will that occur?

[kaliree]

I agree with JMP that using a file system driver is probably the best solution, but I don't know that it's a good one. Paragon (and most non-native file system drivers) can be unreliable and may cause data corruption.

ExFAT is natively support by Windows and OS X, but it is not a journaled file system, so it can corrupt more easily than NTFS or HFS+ by it's very nature.

So, either NTFS or HFS+ on an OS that natively supports that system would be best for storage and backup, though that doesn't give you the flexibility you're looking for.