# exFAT 8 Hacker News commenters recommended exFAT and 7 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 5 of 13 months. **Verdict:** Recommended as the most portable file system, with native read and write support on Windows, Mac and Linux. Critics agree it lacks journaling, so it can corrupt data after a crash. ## Why people recommend it - Native support on Windows, Mac, Linux (5 comments): "Windows and MacOS have native support, and more and more Linux distros are getting support as well" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45888421)) "exFAT has native support on Windows, Mac, and Linux, and there are drivers for BSDs and others." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47320350)) "exFAT has been r/w on all 3 OSes for many years now, and it also supports files >4GB." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46535318)) ## What people warn about - No journaling, risks data corruption (5 comments): "exFAT has the lovely feature of potentially not only corrupting the file, but also corrupting the metadata for the surrounding system as well." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48053558)) "exFAT is terrible for a number of reasons, but in my case the thing I had to deal with was the lack of journaling" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48045505)) "due to the lack of journaling, and its buggy performance on macOS" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46725595)) - Widely seen as flawed (2 comments): "exFAT is terrible for a number of reasons, but in my case the thing I had to deal with was the lack of journaling" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48045505)) "exFAT is crappy, but not obsolete." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46687075)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [ext4](https://hackerapproved.com/p/ext4.md): 32 recommend - [bcachefs](https://hackerapproved.com/p/bcachefs.md): 28 recommend - [XFS](https://hackerapproved.com/p/xfs.md): 20 recommend ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "exFAT", https://hackerapproved.com/p/exfat/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).