To format an external storage device, connect it to one of the ports on your Mac. Turn the drive on, and make sure it appears in the Finder. If the drive is internal, it should already show up in. Jul 20, 2018. Format a flash drive for Mac and PC compatibility in macOS High Sierra. Insert the flash drive or hard drive you want to format for Windows compatibility. Go to the Applications folder on your Mac's hard drive, then go to the.
Most external drives ship in formats that are universally recognised amongst nearly all operating systems (FAT, I’m looking at you), but there may be times where you might want to completely wipe a drive and/or set it up to be compatible with Apple’s Mac lineup only. Either way, you’ll want to format your drive accordingly. Formatting an external drive on your Mac is quite easy, though it isn’t as evident and obvious as it is on a PC. You can format a drive in OS X using two applications: Disk Utility and Terminal. We’ll be detailing both of these methods below. Formatting a Disk Using Disk Utility Formatting a disk using Apple’s Disk Utility is the easiest and most straight-forward method of the two. To format a disk using Apple’s Disk Utility, simply follow the steps below.
Open up Disk Utility on your Mac. You can either do this by searching for it from Spotlight or by navigating to “Applications - Utilities” and opening Disk Utility. Select the disk you want to format from the left-side pane. You’ll see the option to “Erase” the disk at the center – top of the window. Once you click on it, you’ll have the option to rename the disk, select the format you want for the disk (more on that later), and select the disk scheme. Once you have everything selected, simply click on Erase, and you’ll have a newly formatted disk.
Formatting a Disk Using Terminal This method is aimed towards power users who are fond of using Terminal to do work on their Mac. It is a little longer but often comes in useful when Disk Utility refuses to perform your desired action for some reason. To format an external disk using Terminal, simply follow the steps below: 1.
Open Terminal, either by Spotlight or by opening the app from “Applications - Utilities.” 2. Enter the following command into Terminal. Diskutil eraseDisk JHFS+ diskname diskidentifier In the command above, change “JHFS+” to “ HFS+” if you want a volume that is not journalled. Change “diskname” to the new name you want for the disk, and replace “diskidentifier” to the Disk Identifier obtained from Disk Utility. If you want to reformat, replace eraseDisk with reformat and delete the “JHFS+” and “diskname” parts of the command. Use eraseDisk to erase the entire external disk, or eraseVolume if you just want to erase a particular partition.
For example, I’d use “disk2s2” if I wanted to erase Untitled only in the example below: Once done, press Enter, and your disk should be erased and formatted completely. Disk Formats With Disk Utility, you have 3 main formats that you can erase your disk to. MS – DOS (FAT) MS-DOS (FAT) is the most popular format amongst external hard disks, as it’s both readable and writable by nearly all operating systems, Windows and OS X included.
One of the major limitations of this format is that it’s not able to write files larger than 4GB, which can be quite a setback. But apart from that, this will be the format you’ll want to use if you want a drive with cross-compatibility for quick transfers, or temporary storage. Most drives are formatted in MS – DOS (FAT) out of the box. ExFAT ExFAT is for those of you who are finding it hard to use FAT with all the limits, especially the large file transfer issue. ExFAT is basically an extension of FAT that allows for larger file sizes to be written and more. Note that ExFAT is only compatible with versions of Windows later than Vista.
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OS X Extended OS X Extended is Mac’s native drive format. Your internal Macintosh drive is also formatted in this format.
It’s recommended to use this format whenever you need to use an external drive with OS X only. One interesting feature of OS X Extended is that it is case-sensitive, i.e if you specifically name a file “BeachShot1,” OS X will see that file as different from a similar file named “beachshot1.” While formatting your disk to OS X Extended, you’ll have four main options:.
OS X Extended (Journaled). OS X Extended (Case Sensitive, Journaled). OS X Extended (Journaled, Encrypted). OS X Extended (Case Sensitive, Journaled, Encrypted).
With the introduction of the new, Mac users are gradually upgrading their systems. Since the new file system comes with lots of advanced features, it provides a better experience to its users. If you are working with APFS on your macOS Sierra, then you must already be aware of these features. Nevertheless, there are times when users have to format APFS drive. To help you do the same, we have drafted this informative post. Why format APFS drive There could be plenty of reasons to.
From a bad partitioning to a malware attack, your APFS drive can experience some unwanted setbacks. Since the file system supports a full-drive encryption, users often choose to format the drive and get rid of their sensitive content as well.
Additionally, while switching to APFS, if you haven’t got the expected results, then you might choose to format APFS. Not just an internal drive, you can also format an external hard disk as well. This is mostly done to make the external storage unit work for other file systems (like FAT or HFS). Since APFS is comparatively a newer file system, not many users know how to format it in an efficient manner.
To help you, we have listed a stepwise tutorial for it in the next section. How to Format APFS Drive in macOS Sierra If you have implemented the APFS drive on macOS Sierra, chances are that you might face a few unwanted setbacks. The new APFS gives exceptional results for macOS High Sierra, but it isn’t the same for its predecessor.
We recommend taking the assistance of Terminal instead of Disk Utility to format APFS drive. It is a safer alternative and won’t produce any unexpected results. You can format APFS drive in macOS Sierra by following these steps:. To start with, simply launch Terminal on your Mac. You can go to Utilities and launch Terminal from there. After launching Terminal, provide the command 'diskutil list'. This will provide a list of all the disks (internal and external) that are attached to your Mac.
From the list, you need to look for the identifier of the APFS disk you wish to format. Be careful while noting down the exact identifier for the respective disk. Let’s suppose the identifier of the disk is 'disk2s3'. Now, to format this disk, provide the command 'diskutil apfs createContainer /dev/'. Since the identifier for our disk is disk2s3, the command would be “diskutil apfs createContainer /dev/disk2s3”.
This will initiate the process. You will be notified as soon as a new for the disk would be created. This will also list the number for the new APFS disk created. You are almost there.
In the end, you just have to add the APFS volume to the disk. In order to do so, provide the command 'diskutil apfs addVolume disk3 APFS '.
Here, the 'new APFS' would be replaced by identifier of the new APFS container that is just created. For instance, you can view it as disk 3 in our case. This will complete the process.
Now, you can just go to the new APFS drive and have a look at its changed properties as well. APFS Limitations in macOS Sierra By following the above-stated drill, you would be able to format APFS drive without any trouble. Since it is a new file system, it comes with a few limitations as well. Before you, be aware of these limitations. Since Time Machine can’t provide the output of a backup file in APFS format, you might face a hard time to back up and restore your content.
Additionally, the startup disk of Mac also doesn’t support APFS as of now. This inhibits its use for your Mac. One of the major drawbacks of APFS system is that it is case sensitive. That is, 'system' and 'System' are different. This might create unwanted confusion among users.
For a while, Apple has been using Fusion Drives (a kind of hybrid drive). Sadly, APFS doesn’t support it as of now. You can’t use FileVault as well to provide an added security to an APFS volume. Since it is a new file system, it has a limited compatibility. You might face some unwanted setbacks using your external storage units with APFS and other file systems. Now when you know how to format APFS drive, you would certainly be able to make the most of Apple’s new file system in macOS Sierra. If you also have some useful tips and tricks regarding Apple’s latest offering, feel free to share it with our readers in the comments below.