Are USB flash drives compatible with OS X, or are there only certain types that are compatible? I'd like to quickly transfer a few files between OS X and my windows box, both of which won't always be networked, so cross-platform capabilities are a must.
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USB Flash Drives?
- Thread starter SirThom
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Every USB drive I have tried on OSX has been compatible. Mostly, they are FAT32 formatted. If you get one that is NTFS formatted you'll have to reformat before you are able to write to it.
If you have one of the encrypted security ones, you won't be able to use it unless you have the appropriate software installed and issue the password.
If you have one of the encrypted security ones, you won't be able to use it unless you have the appropriate software installed and issue the password.
Most of the modern ones do just work, they report themselves as mass storage devices and that's that. There are exceptions, for example I have an old Smartmedia dongle that needs a device driver for OS X to see it (fortunately there is a driver!).
It is worth the trouble to spend a few minutes on Google to see if a drive you're interested in is either advertised as Mac compatibile, or that someone has reported success in using it on the Mac.
It is worth the trouble to spend a few minutes on Google to see if a drive you're interested in is either advertised as Mac compatibile, or that someone has reported success in using it on the Mac.
I've used one of those ($20) 1G flash drives for documents and pictures for Mac & PC, and both have work on both OS's without any problems... 
I have a few flash drives, and oddly enough they're formatted in FAT16... something I've never heard of, but they work fine. One bit of advice though, if you trash stuff from the drive, you have to empty the trash before ejecting the flash drive or it won't delete.