Sep 20, 2019 And any drive that needs to work with older Macs, running El Capitan or earlier, should absolutely be formatted with Mac OS Extended, because APFS is not compatible with those computers. APFS also doesn’t work with Time Machine, so you should format any drive you want to use for backing up your Mac using Mac OS Extended. Aug 30, 2016 Some Mac users may require the ability to erase a disk or erase a hard drive from the command line on Mac OS, a task which is typically performed through the Disk Utility application from the GUI. The command line approach to disk erasure in macOS is a bit different and it requires precise syntax to insure that you are erasing the proper disk, making this method of erasing any disk only.
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Nowadays, when you buy a USB drive, you can use it right out of the box with your Mac. Mac os sierra wifi driver. However, unless it’s been designed for use with a Mac, it won’t be formatted using macOS’ preferred file system (either Mac OS Extended or APFS, depending on which version of macOS you’re running).
That’s because most of the computers in the world run Windows, and Windows uses a different file system, usually one known as Fat32. Drives formatted as Fat32 can be read from and written to by macOS, but it’s not optimal and you’re more likely to run into problems than if you use macOS’ native format. So, if you’ve bought a USB drive that’s formatted as Fat32, or any other format other than Mac OS Extended (also known as HFS+) or APFS, here’s how to format a USB drive on Mac. It’s exactly the same procedure if you need to reformat a flash drive on a Mac.
How to format a USB drive on a Mac
1. Plug the drive into a USB socket (if you have a recent MacBook or MacBook Pro that only has USB-C connectors, you’ll need a USB-C to USB-A adaptor).
2. Open a new Finder window and click on the drive. Make sure it has no files on it that you need. The process of reformatting it will wipe all the data from it.
3. Once you’ve copied any files you need from the USB drive to your Mac, go to Applications>Utilities and double-click on Disk Utility.
4. Click on the USB drive in the sidebar and then choose Erase from the toolbar at the top of the window.
5. In the window that drops down type a name for the formatted drive in the box next to Name.
6. Choose a format from the dropdown menu.
7. If you have previously stored sensitive data on the drive, click the Security tab.
8. Choose a security level using the slider. The further to the right you move the slider, the more ‘passes’ the erase tool will make and the more securely files will be deleted. However, it also increases the time it takes to format the drive quite considerably.
9. Click Ok then click Erase.
Tip: You don’t need to erase a whole drive to delete files securely. If you have confidential files or sensitive data you need to remove from your Mac completely, you should use CleanMyMac’s File Shredder. It’s specifically designed to securely delete sensitive data and will render it unrecoverable. You can download CleanMyMac X for free here.
Which format to choose?
If your Mac is running macOS High Sierra or later, you have two options for file formats: APFS and Mac OS Extended. Which should you choose? The key point is that disks formatted as APFS won’t be recognized by Macs running versions of macOS older than High Sierra. So if you think you might need to plug the USB drive into a Mac running an older version of macOS, format it as Mac OS Extended.
APFS is optimized for SSD (solid state drive) such as flash drives, so if you reformat a flash drive on a Mac, you should definitely choose APFS (unless you plan to use it with a pre-High Sierra Mac, of course). Even on hard drives, however, APFS is faster and more reliable than Mac OS Extended.
Finally, if you plan to use the USB drive as a destination for Time Machine backups, choose Mac OS Extended. Time Machine can’t currently back up to an APFS disk and if you select one for use with Time Machine, it will offer to reformat it as Mac OS Extended. You can, however, backup an APFS formatted disk to a Mac OS Extended Time Machine drive.
How to format a USB drive to FAT32 on a Mac
The main reason for formatting a USB drive as Fat32 on a Mac is that you want to be able to use the drive on a Windows PC, as well as a Mac — perhaps to transfer files between the two machines. You may also be preparing the drive for use as, say, a storage device for a media player or to record TV programmes on a TV with a USB port.
The fact that Fat32 can be read from and written to on both Mac and Windows makes it very versatile. However, there is a significant limitation — individual files have a maximum size of 4GB. So, if you’re using the USB drive to store large video files, you may run into trouble. There is a solution, however, exFAT. Unlike FAT32, exFAT doesn’t have a maximum file limit. Better still, it can be read from and written to on any Mac running Mac OS X Snow Leopard or later and on Windows.
To format a USB drive in FAT32 or exFAT:
1. Make mac os run faster on ssd external drive. Plug the USB drive into your Mac.
2. Go to Applications>Utilities and launch Disk Utility.
3. Click on the USB drive in the sidebar in Disk Utility.
4. Click Erase in the Disk Utility toolbar.
5. Type in a name for the formatted disk.
6. Click on the Format menu and choose either MS-DOS (FAT32) or ExFAT.
7. Click Erase.
Google drive not syncing mac os 10. Your USB drive will now be erased and re-formatted as either FAT32 or ExFAT, depending on the format you chose in step 6.
How to manage your drives easily
If you look for a quick and easy way to manage your drives, try using CleanMyDrive 2. With its help, you can drag-and-drop files directly to any drive, clean hidden junk from external drives, and check disk stats. It works for all drives, including USB drives, SSD, SD cards, external hard drives. All the drives will be at hand in the menu bar, so you can get to see types of drives you have and manage them easily. CleanMyDrive is absolutely free to use, so download it on the Mac App Store and enjoy!
It’s very easy to format a USB drive on a Mac using Disk Utility. There are a couple of things you should keep in mind, however. The first is that when you format and disk, you will erase all the data currently on it. So if you need that data, make sure you copy it onto another disk before you start. Secondly, there are several formats to choose from, each with advantages and disadvantage. Use the guide above to help you decide which is right for you.
![Extended Extended](/uploads/1/3/3/8/133896116/682116995.jpg)
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Are you having trouble creating Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and APFS partitions using Disk Utility? If so, you can create a Mac OS Extended partition using GParted, then convert to APFS using Disk Utility.Disk Utility
Disk Utility is a disk utility on macOS operating system. It supports creating, splitting, merging, resizing, deleting and formatting partitions on the hard disk. Disk Utility only supports partition creation and formatting for Mac OS Extended (Journaled), exFAT, MS-DOS (FAT) and since MacOS High Sierra (10.13), it supports APFS.
If you are a Linux user or operating systems other than macOS, you probably use another tool. In another case, if you are using a Seagate, WD My Passport or any other hard drive that you previously partitioned with another tool. Disk Utility will report MediaKit reports not enough space on device for requested operation. This error occurs because the partitions created do not comply with Apple’s partition policy. In this case, you can use other tools instead of Disk Utility.
In this article, I will guide you to create a Mac OS Extended (Journaled) partition with GParted. If you want to install macOS High Sierra or later versions, just use the Convert to APFS feature on Disk Utility.
GParted
GParted is a well known disk partitioning program. It supports many partition formats such as FAT32, NTFS, exFAT, Ext4 and of course supports Mac OS Extended. We can use GParted to create Mac OS Extended partitions in just a few simple steps.
GParted comes pre-installed on many Linux distributions like Ubuntu, Debian, Linux Mint… If you already have GParted installed, just use it. If not, you can download GParted or 4MParted ISO files then integrate into AIO Boot. You should use these two operating systems, as they have pre-installed programs that support the format. If you use GParted on Ubuntu, Linux Mint or Debian, you need to install hfsprogs.
The format of Mac OS Extended is HFS+. There are some commercial softwares that support creating HFS + partitions on Windows, but GParted is free. https://evernv199.weebly.com/epson-perfection-2400-photo-driver-mac-os-x.html. Now we will create the HFS+ partition with GParted.
- Run GParted and select the hard disk in the dropdown list at the top right. My hard disk is /dev/sda.
- You can only create new partitions if your hard disk has unallocated space. Right-click on the unallocated space and select New. You can also format existing partitions to HFS+. Right-click the existing partition, select Format to, and then select hfs+. Or delete the existing partition to recreate it.
- Select hfs+ in the File system. Then select and enter some information for the other items you want.
- Click Add, then click Apply to apply the changes.
The Mac OS Extended partition created by GParted will not be journaled. However, we can use Disk Utility to Enable Journaling. Or use the following command to format Mac OS Extended to Mac OS Extended (Journaled):
/dev/sdaX is the partition you want to format.
Convert to APFS
From the MacOS High Sierra version, Apple announced a new file system called APFS. By default, macOS High Sierra can only be installed on an APFS partition. You can use Disk Utility to convert Mac OS Extended partitions to APFS without losing data.
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If the Mac OS Extended partition is not Journaled, please journaled it first. Run Disk Utility, select the Mac OS Extended partition in the left column, then select File and select Enable Journaling.
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Now you can convert Mac OS Extended (Journaled) partitions to APFS without losing data. Just select Edit and select Convert to APFS…
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By using GParted with the simple steps above, we can easily create Mac OS Extended (Journaled) partitions and many other formats that Disk Utility does not support. If you need to create macOS High Sierra bootable USB from Windows, you can try Clover Boot Disk. Good luck!