How To Format External Hard Drive For Mac

HomeHow ToMacOSHow to Format External Hard Drive for Mac and PC

Format External Hard Drive – Mac The default tool for formatting hard drives for a Mac is Disk Utility, which can be opened by typing “Disk Utility” in the Spotlight search bar in the top-right corner of your desktop or by locating it under Applications/Utility. How to Format an External Drive for Mac Compatibility. This is a simple procedure and is achieved the same way for all drive types and through all connections, be they USB, Firewire, or Thunderbolt. Formatting a drive will erase all data and partitions on the disk: Connect the hard drive or USB key to the Mac. Method 3: Format external hard drive for Mac and PC Step 1.: Install and launch Eassos PartitionGuru from your computer and find. Step 2.: Right-click on the partition to be formatted and select ' Format Current Partition '. Step 3.: Select Filesystem type from the drop-down list and click. Feb 27, 2018  Before using an external hard drive on a Mac, you should format it using Disk Utility. This insures that you will have a compatible hard drive with your computer. To Format external hard drive on.

You can format an external hard drive or USB so that it’s compatible for both your Mac and your Windows PC.

Without formatting the drive, you won’t be able to use your hard drive across different operating systems.

When you do format a hard drive, you’ll be able to access your data, media and files across any operating system. Keyboard for mac mini.

This is extremely handy if you use a Mac and Windows operating system because you’ll be able to cross between both platforms and use your USB on anyone.

Remember that everything gets wiped off your hard drive when you format it, so you’ll need to back it up before you follow the steps down below.

Let’s get started…

How To Format External Hard Drive For Mac Os X El Capitan

Format Using MS-DOS FAT

The good thing about changing the format to FAT is that it works with all Macs and PCs, plus it uses less memory and it works faster.

The negatives of using Fat is that it can’t contain files bigger than 4GB.

To format your hard drive to FAT on Mac:

  1. Click on Spotlight and open Disk Utility
  1. Click on the USB drive you want to format
  1. Click the Erase tab at the top

How To Format External Hard Drive For Macbook Pro

  1. Choose the MS-DOS (FAT) in the format drop down
  2. Click Erase and follow the prompts
  3. Your external hard drive to now formatted

Remember that once you’ve formatted your hard drive, it will get wiped so you’ll need to backup the content on your external drive.

If you’re using a USB, you can simply drag its contents to a folder in your PCs hard drive and upload it back to your external hard drive once it has been formatted.

Format Using ExFAT

The good about formatting to exFAT is that it can handle unlimited file sizes and partition sizes.

The cons of exFAT are that you can only use it with Mac OS X 10.6.5 or newer and your Windows PC needs to be either Windows Vista SP1 or Windows 7 and above.

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Another problem with exFAT is that it’s extremely slow so moving files to this drive will take several minutes.

To Format using exFAT on Windows PC:

  1. Plug in your external hard drive in Windows PC
  2. Open File Explorer
  1. Right-click on your external drive and select Format
  1. Choose exFAT in the menu
  2. Click Start
  3. Your external drive is now formatted

After formatting your drive, it’s now compatible for both your Mac and your Windows PC.

Fat is the best option to use because you can use it on any OS, however, it can only contain 4GB which may not be enough for you.

Hard Drive Format For Mac And Windows

If you have a new OS system, I’d definitely recommend exFAT because it can contain unlimited data.

Bottom Line

Going into Disk Unity then clicking the erase tab is the quickest way to format an external drive on your MAC.

If you have any questions or you’re having any problems, comment down below and I’ll help you further.

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