Some external storage devices are preformatted exFAT for compatibility with both Mac and Windows computers.

Optimise performance by formatting your device NTFS Disconnect the hard drive from the computer.Windows displays a notification when it is safe to remove the device. In the list of devices, choose the device you want to remove.If you don't see the Safely Remove Hardware icon, click Show hidden icons arrow in the system tray to display all icons in the notification area.Click the Safely Remove icon in your Windows System Tray to view the devices you can eject.How to Safely Remove your external storage device: Click to select Enable write caching on the device.Right-click the drive on which you want to turn disk write caching on or off, and then click Properties.Right-click My Computer or This PC, and then click Manage.Connect your external storage device to the computer.Safely removing instructions are provided below. NOTE: It’s extremely important to safely remove your external storage device before disconnecting it from your computer. For more information see this linked Microsoft article. It’s important to be aware of the risks such as data loss or data corruption due to power loss, hardware failure, or not safely ejecting the device simply because the data left in the RAM has not been written to the external storage device. While it’s true that write caching improves performance, some precautions need to be taken. Caching these commands allows the computer to temporarily save them until it's written to an external storage device. Write caching is used to improve performance by using the volatile memory (RAM) to collect write commands sent to a storage device. This will allow your system to put more focus on the data transfer which should increase its performance. When doing large data transfers or trying to maximise overall speed of the transfer it is best to ensure that any extra tasks are held to a minimum.

NOTE: Enabling write caching will increase the speed of your device regardless of the format you choose.

Formatting your device NTFS, the Windows native file system.

Enabling write caching in hardware settings.

Here are a few methods to improve the performance of your device: This article provides instructions to improve the performance of an external storage device when using Windows.

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