Disk Utility Format For Windows And Mac

Summary :

1. Mac Disk Utility Format For Windows
2. Disk Utility Mac Format For Windows And Mac
3. Hard Drive Format Utility
4. Drive Format Utility

For OS X, connect your drive. Launch Disk Utility. I usually just press Command-Space and type 'disk utility' into Spotlight to find it. Click on the drive you just connected. The steps are listed as follows: 1. Press ' Windows + R ' simultaneously, input 'diskpart' in the pop-up box, and hit 'Enter' to run Diskpart utility as administrator. In Diskpart window, input the following commands and every command shall come with pressing Enter key. Select disk n, where 'n' is the number of the. When you click on that Options button, you will see the screen shown here. Notice that this screen defaults to Master Boot Record – this is the existing Windows NTFS format that is on the drive. And this must be changed in order to successfully format this drive for a Mac.

Do you know what the best format for external hard drive is on Mac? Do you know how to format an external hard drive on Mac? If you want to recover your lost and deleted files on an external drive on Mac, do you know how to do this? MiniTool Software will show the related information in this article.

When Do You Need to Use an External Hard Drive on Mac?

In many cases, you need to use an external hard drive on your Mac computer. For example:

• If you want to back up your Mac data using Time Machine, you need to use an external hard drive to save the Time Machine backups.
• If your Mac runs out of space, you can use an external hard drive to increase the storage.
• If you want to transfer your Mac data to another computer, you need to use an external hard drive.
• And more….

No matter under which circumstance you need to use an external storage device on your Mac, you may want your Mac external drive to be formatted with the best file system to make it to be recognized on your Mac and maximize the best performance.

Well then, which is the best format for external hard drive Mac? You can get some useful information from the following part.

Which Mac File System Is the Best for an External Drive?

Before choosing the best format for Mac external drive, you should know which file system formats are available in Disk Utility on Mac.

Disk Utility supports the following file system formats:

• Apple File System (APFS): the file system is used by macOS 10.13 (High Sierra) or later.
• Mac OS Extended (HFS+): the file system is used by macOS 10.12 (Sierra) or earlier.
• MS-DOS (FAT): the file system is compatible with both Mac and Windows.
• exFAT: the file system is compatible with both Mac and Windows.

Now, we will introduce these four Mac file systems and this information can help you find the best file system format for external hard drive on Mac.

Apple File System (APFS)

APFS is the default file system for Mac computers that are running macOS 10.13 (High Sierra) or later. It was announced at Apple's Developers Conference (WWDC) in June 2016, meaning to replace HFS+ that was released in 1998. APFS has many attractive features like snapshots, strong encryption, space sharing, fast directory sizing, and improved file system fundamentals.

APFS is optimized for Flash/SSD storage used in recent macOS. Due to this, it can also be used with the older systems with traditional hard disk drives (HDD) and external, direct-attached storage drives. Besides, you can use the APFS file system for both bootable and data volumes on macOS 10.13 or later systems.

APFS is intelligent. It can allocate the disk space within a container/partition on demand. For example, if your APFS container has multiple volumes, the free space in the container is shared. The free space can be automatically allocated to any volume that needs more storage to save data.

When necessary, you can arrange reserve and quota sizes for each volume. The volume only uses part of the overall container. As a result, the available space is the total size of the container minus the size of all the volumes in the container.

APFS has the following four formats:

• APFS: it uses the APFS format. If you don't need to use an encrypted or case-sensitive format, you can choose this format.
• APFS (Encrypted): it uses the APFS format. You can encrypt the volume if you format the Mac volume with this file system on your Mac.
• APFS (Case-sensitive): it uses the APFS format. This file system can distinguish the case of the file and folder names. For instance, folders that are named Work and WORK are two different folders.
• APFS (Case-sensitive, Encrypted): it uses the APFS format. This file system integrates the features of the above two formats. That is, it is case-sensitive to the names of the file and folder, and you can encrypt the volume.

You can choose the best format for external hard drive on Mac based on your requirements.

Mac OS Extended (HFS+)

Mac OS Extended, which is also known as HFS+/HFS Plus or HFS Extended, is a journaling file system developed by Apple Inc. It is using on macOS 10.12 (Sierra) or earlier. It was the primary Mac OS X file system until it was replaced with APFS.

It has the following four formats:

• Mac OS Extended (Journaled): it uses the Mac format of Journaled HFS Plus. It can protect the integrity of the hierarchical file system. If you don't need to encrypt the volume or distinguish the case of the file and folder names, you can choose to use this format.
• Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted): it uses the Mac format. This file system needs you to set a password to encrypt the partition.
• Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled): it uses the Mac format. It is case-sensitive to the names of folders.
• Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled, Encrypted): it uses the Mac format. It integrates the features of the above two formats: you need to set a password for the partition to encrypt it and it is case-sensitive to the names of folders.

MS-DOS (FAT) & exFAT

Both FAT and exFAT are compatible with both Mac and Windows. The differences are that FAT is used for a volume that is 32GB or less, while exFAT is used for a volume that exceeds 32GB.

If you want to use the external hard drive on both Windows and Mac, you can choose to use one of these two file systems. In comparison, exFAT is more compatible.

Want to format an external hard drive for Mac and Windows PC? This post will show specific methods to make external hard drive compatible with Mac and PC.

Apple File System (APFS) vs. Mac OS Extended (HFS+) vs. MS-DOS (FAT) vs. exFAT

Which is the best file system for Mac external hard drive? The answer is not fixed. You should select the best file system based on your application scenarios.

The following table is for your reference:

How to Format External Hard Drive on Mac?

When you know which file system you can use on your Mac, you can format the external hard drive to that format. You can use Mac Disk Utility to do it.

Now, we will show you how to format an external hard drive via Disk Utility:

1. Connect the external hard drive to your Mac via a USB cable.

2. Open Disk Utility. You can go to Finder > Application > Utilities > Disk Utility to open it. You can also press Command+Space to open Spotlight search and use it to search for disk utility to open it.

3. You will see a list of available disks on the left section of Disk Utility. Then, click the View button on the top menu and select Show All Devices.

4. Select the external hard drive you want to format from the left-side list and click the Erase button to continue.

5. In the Erase dialogue, expand Scheme and select GUID Partition Map.

6. Expand Format and select the file system you want to use. Here, we take APFS (Encrypted) as an example.

7. Type a name for the volume.

8. Click Erase.

9. Click Done.

How to Recover Data from an External Hard Drive on Mac?

You may delete your important files in your Mac external hard drive. You can use a professional Mac data recovery software to get them back. You can use Stellar Data Recovery for Mac, a free Mac file recovery tool. Skamper manual.

This software is specially designed to recover lost and deleted files on Mac as long as they are not overwritten by new data. It has a trial edition. You can first use it to scan the drive you want to recover data from and check whether you can find the files you want to rescue. You can go to the MiniTool official download center to get this freeware.

After that, you can use this software to retrieve files from your external hard drive on Mac.

1. Make sure the external hard drive is connected to your Mac computer.

2. Open Stellar Data Recovery for Mac.

3. Select the data types you want to recover. If you want to recover all types, you can just keep the current selections.

4. Click the Next Project management practice mantel meredith solution manual. button to continue.

5. The software will show you the drive it can detect. You need to select the plugged external hard drive and click the Scan button to continue. If you want to perform a deep scan, you can turn on Deep Scan (on the bottom left corner of the software interface).

6. The software will begin to scan the selected external hard drive. When the scanning ends, you will see the scan results, including the deleted and existing files in the drive. You can check whether your needed files are there.

7. You can't use the trial edition of this software to recover the found files. You need to update the software to an advanced edition to recover files. You need to go to the MiniTool official site to get such an edition.

8. After updating this software to a full edition, you can select the files you want to recover, click the Recover button, and select a suitable location to save the selected files. You should remember that you should not save the files to the original location. If you do that, your deleted files could be overwritten by the recovered files and become unrecoverable.

Summary

Reading here, you should know the best format for an external hard drive on Mac. Yes, you should select a file system according to your situation. Then, you can use Mac Disk Utility to format the external hard drive to your needed file system format. Additionally, if you want to recover data from your external hard drive, you can try Stellar Data Recovery for Mac.

If you are bothered by other related issues and searching for solutions, or you have other suggestions about the Mac file system, you can let us know in the comments or contact us via [email protected].

Best Format for External Hard Drive Mac FAQ

Mac Disk Utility Format For Windows

You might need to format USB drive (Pendrive or Thumb drive) for numerous reasons, say if you want to delete all files completely including hidden files to free up space, to repair a corrupted USB drive or some other reasons. But on Mac, users face a peculiar situation where USB drive is not recognized by the Apple's OS. This article is all about How to Format USB Drive on Mac.

There is no denying the fact that Windows dominates the world of Operating System in numbers of users. Both Mac and Windows use different file systems in their computer, that is why USB drive for Windows, in most cases doesn't support on Mac. Detailed information on the file system used in Mac is covered under the section ‘file system which one to choose'.

Contents

• 1 Before Formatting USB Drive, Do this!
• 2 How to Format USB Drive on Mac

Before Formatting USB Drive, Do this!

Before you proceed to format USB drive on Mac, you must BACKUP data first. Formatting the USB drive will delete all the files. This article is also applicable for other external storage devices like External Hard disk, thus resolving storage device not recognizing on Mac by changing its format. To check information related to File system, remaining space, etc of USB drive follow these steps:

1. Right-click on the USB drive icon on the desktop, if not available, Open a ' Finder' window, then right-click on USB drive located on the sidebar.

Disk Utility Mac Format For Windows And Mac

2. A menu will appear, click on 'Get Info'. Then, a pop up will appear showing details about the USB drive.

You might also need Internet Connection if you wish to download 3rd party application recommended by us. In the next section, we will discuss file system in detail, you may skip this section and directly jump to the next one for easy steps to format USB drive.

File system- Which one to choose?

The file system is the way of storing, organizing and accessing data (files) in storage devices such as a Hard disk, USB devices, etc. Mac has its own set of file system and so does Windows. By default, Mac uses HFS+ also known as OS X Extended, this file system is native to Mac and is unsupported in Windows. Currently, windows use NTFS ( New Technology File System) which is partially supported by Mac ( mostly Read-only operations).

This issue can be resolved by choosing to format your storage device in either in FAT32 or exFAT file system as both of these filesystems are supported by both Mac and Windows. The FAT32 filesystem is relatively old and has some limitation on the maximum size of a file can be only 4GB or less and partition size cannot exceed more than 8GB. Whereas, exFAT is comparatively new, also is the most preferred file system. file system. In exFAT. there is no limitation on maximum file size( very high) and also for maximum partition size of the storage device. Therefore, we would request you to use modern filesystem exFAT as it supported in many platforms.

Other filesystems supported by Mac are:

• OS X Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled): Similar to Unix operating system, a Filesystem with case-sensitive name, eg: Document and document are two different files.
• OS X Extended (Journaled, Encrypted): A file system in which content will be encrypted, you will have to enter the password to access files.
• OS X Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled, Encrypted): This filesystem is an amalgamation of above two cases i.e. both encryption and case sensitive.

These filesystems are exclusive to Mac and are not supported by Windows. Recommend partition scheme is GPT (GUID Partition Map) as it is supported by both Mac and Windows.

How to Format USB Drive on Mac

Now, lets us see how to format USB port in Mac:

Hard Drive Format Utility

Disk Utility

Mac provides you with a utility tool to format storage devices like USB drive, called Disk Utility. You could format a drive with a changed file system and partition scheme using Disk Utility.

1. Open 'Finder'. Select 'Application' located in the sidebar then click on 'Utilities' and finally, click on 'Disk Utilities'. Alternatively, Press Command + Space and search for 'Disk Utilities' and press Enter to open Disk Utilities.

2. On the left sidebar, all the storage devices will be listed. In the 'External' section look for your USB drive. Click on the USB drive to select it. Information related to USB drive will appear. Now, select 'Erase' located on the top.

3. A pop up will appear. You can change Name, Format (File System), Scheme (Partition) in here. Change Format to 'exFAT', Scheme to 'GUID Partition Map' and Name the USB drive as you pleased ( there is naming convention and characters limit). You could also leave the fields unchanged if you satisfied. Finally, click on 'Erase' to format the USB drive.

Drive Format Utility

*** Remember to backup your USB drive prior to formatting it, otherwise you will lose all the data stored in it. ***

Cleanmydrive3

Cleanmydrive 3 is the highest rated most popular 3rd party application for managing both Internal as well as External storage devices. It is available in both paid and free variants. It has a very simple easy to use interface for formatting USB drive. Also, you can find hidden files, junk files (free up space in Mac) and is loaded with many other features.

Conclusion

Hopefully, your USB drive must be formatted by now. Follow the steps in the same order as mentioned above to avoid any confusion. Once again don't forget to backup your files before formatting the USB drive.

You could also use the same steps to format other storage devices. If your storage device ( USB drive is Windows compatible only and is not showing (recognizing) in Mac, backup your data in Windows first. Also, you can format the USB drive using Windows in exFAT format easily.

Always safely remove USB drive after use or else your data can get corrupted. Bookmark us for more awesome content on Mac!