Is exFAT now the best choice for an external hard drive that will be used for Windows, Mac, and Linux? [duplicate]

I'm running a Windows, Mac, Linux tripleboot off of a single SSD, and am now, unsurprisingly, in need of additional storage space in the form of an external hard drive. I want to format my hard drive so that files that can be read and written from all three operating systems.

According to this question/answer from 2009, NTFS can be used on Windows, Mac, and Linux, after installing some drivers.

However, it looks like the MacFuse project is no longer being actively developed, and NTFS-3G has now become a paid program, so NTFS is no longer a viable solution for Mac OSX.

So the question is, what is the best file system to use today for an external hard drive connected to Windows, Mac, and Linux?

I'm thinking exFAT, since Windows and Mac support it natively, and (Ubuntu) Linux supports it after running sudo apt-get install fuse-exfat.

Are there any limitations I need to consider?

Solution 1:

exFAT is awesome and works across the top 3 operating systems, totally recommend it. It was designed to replace FAT32 by addressing shortcomings it had considering its age. exFAT surpassed its needs by far and is used often in removable drive devices but can be used as the main partition scheme if you wanted.

Solution 2:

You're wrong about the NTFS-3G solution. You can still use it for free (e.g. by installing through Homebrew). Only the Tuxera and Paragon releases are commercial. MacFuse was replaced by osxfuse and is actively maintained. For more ideas, see this answer: How to copy files to read-only NTFS hard drive on a Mac?

With that clarified, you may reconsider NTFS as an option for your external hard drive.