How To Format Your External Hard Drive For Mac

Apple’s computer systems are to be had with a beneficiant quantity of difficult force area, from 256 GB all of the manner to eight TB on high-quit models. While that can be masses of area for maximum users, video editing, animation, development, and digital machines are only a few matters which can make even eight TB experience cramped. In the ones situations, an outside difficult can offer extra area at a fragment of the fee of inner storage.

In addition to day by day use, outside difficult drives additionally offer an exceptional manner to returned up a computer. While many rely upon iCloud, Dropbox, or a few different on line service, a neighborhood backup can offer a greater steady choice. Using an outside difficult force for a neighborhood backup also can be faster, due to the fact that backing up and restoring isn’t depending on the rate of your net connection.

Most new difficult drivers, however, come formatted for Windows, now no longer macOS. While the Mac can use a difficult force formatted for Windows, a few functions can be limited. As a result, it’s a very good concept to layout a brand new difficult force especially for macOS.

How to Format a Hard Drive

Fortunately, formatting an outside difficult force on macOS may be very smooth the use of integrated software. Before starting, make certain your outside difficult force is plugged in and powered on.

Press the Command key and Spacebar, type “Disk Utility” withinside the seek field, and press Enter to open it.

Once Disk Utility is open, pick out your outside difficult force from the listing of drives withinside the left pane of the application, then pick out “Erase” withinside the toolbar on the top.

In the popup window, input a call for the difficult force. This is what’s going to display up to your computer whilst you plug the difficult force in.

Select the “Format” popup menu and pick out the filesystem you need to apply while formatting the force. If you simplest plan on the use of the difficult force together along with your Mac, and are walking macOS 10.thirteen or later, the nice choice is “APFS” — so long as the outside difficult force is an SSD. If it’s miles a mechanical difficult force, or you may be the use of the force with a model of macOS that’s older than 10.thirteen, you’re higher off choosing “Mac OS Extended (Journaled),” in line with Apple. Conversely, in case you plan on the use of the difficult force with each macOS and Windows, you ought to choose “MS-DOS (FAT).”

After you’ve decided on the filesystem, click “Erase” and verify your decision.

Once the method is complete, the difficult force may be equipped for use.