How to format external hard drive mac 2 simple methods revealed. Many backup archives and video files are larger than 4 gb. Or if youve partitioned your toshiba external hard drive. Under file system, choose the file system you want to use. After youre done, dont forget to remove the external hard. If you want to format your external hard drive to work with mac and windows computers, you should use exfat. Connect the empty external hd to your mac and launch disk utility. How to format an external hard drive for mac and windows. This is very easy to carry out, and only requires a few moments of your time. If you are trying to format mac external hard drive, you can go over the process step by step.
Dont bypass this, if you will use the drive with your mac only. Its a good idea to backup your data for your mac using time machine. A mac can see a ntfs formatted external hard drive but cannot write to it. It supports windows 1087vistaxp, both 32 and 64 bit. Since formatting an external hard drive will erase all of its files if you wish to save them you must back them up copy. This means you can copy files from an external hard. You can use your toshiba canvio drive as a destination for your time machine backups. How to transfer files from mac to external hard drive how to transfer files from mac to an external hard drive you want to empty your mac to have more space and you dont know how. Feb 08, 2020 how to partition an external hard drive on mac. May 09, 2019 aimed at multimedia professionals, the caldigit av pro 2 is a welldesigned, mac formatted external drive that comes in ssd and spinning disk versions, and includes both a usb hub and thunderbolt. Dec 29, 2015 the instructions below are for windows 10, but other versions of windows from windows 7 and up can also format an external drive as exfat for use with mac as well. Buying and using an external hd is one thing, getting the most out of it is quite another.
How to use toshiba external hard drive on mac solved. How to format external hard drive on a mac latest version. How to format usb driveexternal hard drive on macos catalina. Open the disk utility app and highlight your external hard drive. If you bought a hard drive to store the files you dont use all the. If you read my previous post about how to format an external drive for mac, you know that i bought a 2tb seagate expansion external hard drive and managed to create two partitions on the disk one for mac backup purposes, and the other for personal use in this article, im going to show you how to back up your mac data to an external drive. What do you mean by the commercial files and how does it prevent you from formatting the external hard drive. How to backup a mac to an external hard drive in 2020. Oct 15, 2018 find the right qnap external drive format. Even though mac computers are capable of reading hard drives that are formatted for windows, if you intend on using your external hdd as a bootable disk or want to use it to backup files with your mac s time machine, you must format it to be entirely mac compatible. That said, if you are using smaller file sizes fat32 can suffice. However, if you want to convert ntfs to exfat to make external hard drive compatible with mac and pc, 3 steps are required.
Select the drive from the left sidebar, then click the partition tab. You can also use time machine with an external hard drive connected to an. For that, you might buy a new external hard drive and you connected with your mac computer or windows pc. How to convert a macformatted drive to a windows drive. That is why you will require as much room as possible. How to format an external hard drive with pictures wikihow. But you can only use drives formatted as mac os extended journaled file system for a time machine backup. How to format an external hard drive on windows and mac. Rightclick on the icon for your external drive on mac desktop, then select get info.
How to format a hard drive windows 10, 8, 7, vista, xp. The first set of steps involves formatting the drive. Mac owners have good machines, with plenty of battery life and power. The capacity of your backup external hard drive for mac is essential. Mar 31, 2020 if you buy a new external hard drive, you may notice that working between mac and pc is an often difficult but it doesnt need to be.
How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. Use the wizard to create a partition with the ntfs or fat32 file system. If it does not you will need to rightclick and delete the volume first. There will be no space wasted by protected mac partitions. Apr 30, 2020 to format an external hard drive for mac with time machine, you must follow the steps below. This tool can help you securely and quickly format usb flash drive, external hard drive under macos catalina.
First, lets see how to format an external hard drive or usb drive in macos which works with both mac and pc platforms, first plugin your drive in macos machine. Its necessary and good for your data because the process of formatting your toshiba hard drive to be used on mac also includes erasing of all the data from the drive. Please see below on how to reformat your external hard drive on mac and windows. How to format external hard drive to use on mac and pc. Macs can also read and write to exfat drives thanks to the agreement made with microsoft. Format an external hard drive or usb flash drive for mac os x. Whether youre selling your computer, trying a new operating system, or setting up an external drive for backups, sometimes you need to completely erase and format a hard drive. Now enter the volume label as you need and change the file system for exfat and click ok. You will often find the same model in different variations. Just select the one you want to format and click on the erase tab. Open applications utilities disk utility find your external hard drive in the list of drives.
How to format or partition an external hard drive on mac. Format external hard drive for mac with disk utility. External hard drive for mac and pc with data interchangeable. Step 2 on the left side of the utilities screen, find the name of the external hard drive you want to format and select it. If you have a mac you should format the drive for your mac first thing, before you start using it. Many users want to format their external hard drive or usb drive for qnap nas backup. May 01, 2020 how to erase a disk for mac use disk utility to erase format a hard disk, ssd, flash drive, or other storage device. Well show you everything you need to know about the. How to format external ssd for mac time machine mashtips. If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide. Format usb drive, external hard drive on macos catalina. You can format your western digital my passport external hard drive to fat32 or exfat format to transfer the data between a mac and windows system conveniently.
Aug 30, 2019 select the external hard drive in the left hand sidebar and click on the erase tab. According to the solutions above, the easeus partition tool stands out for its convenience and easiness. The general rule is that backup hard drives vary from 1tb to 5tb capacity. An external hard drive as big as your mac s internal drive. This is not hard to do, and will take you only about a minutes effort.
Then, you can share external hard drive between mac and pc. Apples time machine backup utility is unable to store data on the fat32 formatted hard drives. Once you open the disk utility app, you can see all the drives on your mac are listed on the lefthand sidebar. Backup disks you can use with time machine apple support. Dont click the format disk button or windows will erase the contents of the driveclick cancel. Mar 22, 2012 the best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. How to backup mac to an external hard drive 5 steps. If you plan to use your drive for time machine backups on a mac, and you use only. How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac.
How to transfer files from mac to external hard drive. The best external hard drives for mac in 2020 pcmag. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. Use a single external hard drive for time machine backups and. Please keep in mind that reformatting will result in the loss of all the data on the hard drive so make sure you back up your data elsewhere before starting. Since most external hard drives are formatted for pcs, before the backup of your mac begins you need to format the hard drive for macos. The easiest way is to drag it from one drive to another. Step 2 follow the steps above to format the drive, and then you can use it with time machine on your mac system. Thus, having an external hard drive will help you to save your files. Now that you know which format to use, check out our guide on how to format your hard drive on.
From the description provided, i understand that you want to format an external hard drive. The drive will now be formatted for use by windows systems. Apple time machine 101 seagate style seagate support us. Make sure your external hard drive is attached and mounted to. Formatting an external hard drive would erase everything on it. Most external hard drives you buy will come out of the box preformatted for a windows computer ntfs. Choose either apfs or mac os extended journaled to format as a mac volume. How to create a bootable backup of your entire mac on an. Step 1 open finder, applications, then go to utilities and disk utility. Any hard drive can be formatted for mac and here is how you do it. Using your toshiba external hard drive to backup to.
If the external hard drive is pre formatted for mac, disk management will list 3 partitions and you will not be able to delete the health efi system partition because its a protected partition. Apr 23, 2014 its a good idea to backup your data for your mac using time machine. How to format wd my passport for mac and pc easeus. Seagate backup plus 5tb external hard drive portable hdd light blue usb 3. However, the new external hard drive comes as formatted drive, but, if you think the external drive should be formatted as another format filesystem. Step 1 connect the external hard drive you want to format to your mac, then start the disk utility app that you can find under applications utilities. In order to get started and partition your external hard drive, follow the simple instructions below.
Here are our favorite usbc hard drives for your mac. To be able to assist you better, provide us few more details on the below questions. Formatting external hard drive and setting up time machine for mac. For most reasons to erase, including when reformatting a disk or selling, giving away, or trading in your mac, you should erase your entire disk. The formatted data also can be recovered by mac data recovery software. You can technically use disk utility to copy your entire hard drive, but the result. Enter a name for the disk or volume, such as macintosh hd. Open finder and choose applications utilities disk utility to launch the app on your mac. People might need to format a hard drive or an external hard drive in windows 10 for various reasons. For instance, users want to write data to and read data from, to do a clean installation of the windows system, to get rid of a virus or malware, to erase the data before giving the drive to someone else or throwing it away, or some other reasons. You should create multiple partitions on your external hard drive, in order to have enhanced file organization.
How to format external hard drives for mac and windows. Give your drive a name and select the file system you want from the format dropdown. Whenever you are planning to format your toshiba hard drive for mac, its always suggested to take a backup of the drive you are going to format. This is the copy of files that youve backed up to our servers. How to format an external hard drive the easy way in 2020. Usb drives and external hard drives on macos catalina are used for storing and backing up important data such as photos, videos, audios, images, notes, messages, music files, pdf files, word documents, among other files. How to format an external hard drive for use with a mac. Highlight your drive and click partition in disk utility.
Hence, you must backup your important files before reformatting the drive if you want to save them. These usbc hard drives can back up or beef up your mac s storage usbc is the future, and grabbing an external hard drive is a great way to store backups, music, movies, files, and more. All files on your external drive will be deleted during the backup, so dont use your time machine drive or a drive you use to store important things on. Copying the files from your mac to an external drive allows you to save data on your own terms. How to format your external hard drive or usb flash drive for mac. Quickly format an external hard drive for mac and windows pc. With exfat, you can store files of any size, and use it with any computer made in the last 20 years. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with windows and mac. Backing the hard drive up to an external hd is tricky, though, which is why weve put together this guide on how to backup a.
How to format an external hard drive for mac youtube. In this guide, well show you how to format an external hard drive so you can not only get rid of the. All is set, then you can go ahead to format the drive on your mac. The mac drive may have an efi system partition on it. Now in this interface, you will see a format option. The easiest way to do that is hit cmd and the spacebar at. You can then rightclick in the empty space and select new simple volume to create a partition and format it with the windows ntfs or fat32 file systems.
Macclean360 also offers disk management tool, disk manager. The best format for your external hard drive the hellotech blog. Most accessory manufacturers tend to build accessories for the more dominant platforms, which is why many computer peripherals tend to be more focused on. Click go on the top tool bar, and select utilities. If youre lucky, you can just rightclick each partition on the mac drive and select delete volume to remove the partitions. By this way, you can easily format an external hard drive for mac and pc without losing any data. When you use a hard disk drive, time machine will take a while to back up your mac. Format usb flash drive external hard drive with macclean360 on macos catalina. However, they have no idea when it comes to choosing the partition format for the external storage. Yet when you connect a macformatted drive to windows, youll be informed that you need to format the disk in drive x.
How to share an external hard drive between mac and windows. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and. Oct 16, 2019 the best format for external hard drives. Format external hard drive with third party software aomei partition assistant standard is a great free partition format tool that allows you to format external hard drive to ext2, ext3, ext4, fat32, ntfs, exfat, etc. Time machine can back up to an external usb drive connected to an.