I was asked to add this article in specific reference to USB Flash Drives (also called Jump Drives). Because jump drives are so common, it brings attention to a utility that comes with every Mac system. It is called Disk Utility and it is located in the Utilities folder (found within the Applications folder). This is a very important tool that every Mac user should be aware of. This is the utility that can format most any volume you connect to your Mac, including jump drives. But why would you want to format your brand new jump drive?
Macintosh computers are still the minority by far in the computer world. So when you buy a new external hard drive or USB jump drive, it will most likely be formatted for Windows operating systems. The Windows OS uses a file system called FAT32 and NTFS. The most popular file system on the Macintosh is HFS+ (Hierarchal File System Extended). Both has its advantages but even though HFS+ is often seen as a better system, in a world dominated by PCs, it becomes a moot point.
One of the great things about the Macintosh is that it can read both filesystems without any help from 3rd party applications. This means that the jump drive you just bought that is formatted for PC can still be read and written to by your Mac. Again- so why format it?
If you plan on using your jump drive on the two operating systems for sharing files, then I would have my drive formatted for PCs using the FAT32 filesystem. But, if you never plan on plugging this drive into a Windows machine, then I strongly encourage you to format the drive so that it uses the HFS+ filesystem. For the most part, FAT32 works just fine. In fact, Disk Utility will let you format the volume in FAT32, HFS, HFS+, among a few others. So how do you format a drive? Read the article about the application Disk Utility.