WD not showing full Space

[Ranveerdua]

Hi,
I got new WD My Passport 4tb for my MacBook Pro 15inch.
It came in NTFS format, I erased in MS Dos (Fat) format and its showing 2.2tb used, only 1.8tb available.
Can some one help.

 

[MacInWin]

Is there a reason you did not format to HFS+ (Mac OS Extended (Journaled)), which is the default for Macs? Do you want to be able to move this drive back and forth to a Windows machine, or is it strictly for the Mac?

 

[Ranveerdua]

I keep using with windows and Mac

 

[MacInWin]

Reformat it with FAT32. I think the problem is a limitation in how big a drive is supported by just FAT.

 

[Raz0rEdge]

Age old story of how the drives are marketed as opposed to how they are actually formatted. You will never get the full size of the drive as marketed due to the way the FS is laid out.

As recommended by others, you should use the ExFAT FS type if you want to share a drive between Windows and Mac.

 

[chscag]

As Ashwin has advised... exFAT is the format you want to use. Do not use FAT-32 as it's limited to file size and it uses large cluster sizes which take up unnecessary space on the drive.

 

[MacInWin]

I stand corrected, use ExFAT. I don't use any FAT format except for a couple of USB Thumb drives that are less than 2TB, the upper limit of FAT32.