Solution 3: format and erase hard drive under macOS 10.13 High Sierra with AweEraser for Mac. AweEraser for Mac is a data erasure application. It can format your hard drive and erase all the data on your hard drive, beyond the scope of data recovery. It means the data on your hard drive will be permanently erased.
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- What Format Should I Use For Mac Os Sierra Download Without App Store
- What Format Should I Use For Mac Os Sierra Download
Unfortunately, Disk Utility in macOS High Sierra doesn’t make that option easy to find. Read on to see where it’s hiding. We’ll use an external drive for this example. Oct 20, 2019 These steps are for you if you have Mac OS Sierra operating system on your Mac. Or later OS versions. For earlier releases of Mac OS, you find that the steps are the same. Your screens menus may look a bit different so bear that in mind. One more thing before you go through the steps of how to format My Passport for Mac. Jan 20, 2018 HS has had issues accessing external drives however if you have a new drive and use disk utilities in HS to format HFS journaled then it should work fine. The issue is with older drives that we previously formatted correctly say with Sierra that may have an issue with HS unless formatted again (for some reason). TM should work fine with HS. Oct 16, 2017 Set the Format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Apply button, then click on the Done button when it activates. Select the newly formatted SSD volume (indented entry,) then select Restore from the Disk Utility's Edit menu. From the drop-down menu select the volume you want to clone. Click on the Apply button to start the process.
Apr 30,2020 • Filed to: Hard Drive Recovery • Proven solutions
“How to format an external hard drive Mac? What format system to use when reformatting my storage drive for a Mac?”
This is a frequent question asked by first-time, as well as the not-so-tech-savvy, macOS users. Learning how to format an external hard drive Mac is essential. Because saving all your data on the Cloud is nice and all, but physical storage is still popular. Especially if you don’t have a stable internet connection or if most of your files are large.
![What Format Should I Use For Mac Os Sierra What Format Should I Use For Mac Os Sierra](/uploads/1/2/6/5/126562890/620479029.jpg)
Luckily, you don’t have to learn rocket science to be able to format an external hard drive for Mac or PC. The operation is pretty straightforward.
When it comes to your Apple device, there are two methods to use. Read on to find out all you need to know about them.
Part 1: What Is the Best Format for External Hard Drive Mac?
The first step to formatting your external drive for a Mac computer is choosing the right format. There are four possible choices:
- APFS (Apple File System)
- HFS+ (Mac OS Extended)
- exFAT (Extended File Allocation Table)
- FAT (MS-DOS)
To understand which is the best for you, let’s have a comprehensive overview of each of them.
Apple File System
The APFS was first introduced in 2017 as a replacement for the HFS+. Nowadays, all new Macs come with the operating system preinstalled on APFS, as this system is optimized for use with SSD and flash storage drives. However, it still works with traditional HDD drives too.
This is the best format to pick if you have an external SSD or USB flash drive that you don’t intend to use with a Windows device.
The biggest strength of this system is the speed, as well as the encryption and metadata handling. However, you won’t be able to use this system with Time Machine.
Mac OS Extended
The HFS+, or Hierarchical File System plus on its real name, was the main file system used for Mac until 2017.
This type of file system is suitable to use with both HDD and SDD drives, but the latter will perform slightly better with the APFS mentioned above. If you have an older Mac, though, choosing the HFS+ is your best bet.
In general, all external drives formatted to HFS+ work nicely with older Mac versions but are incompatible with Windows.
Extended File Allocation Table
Designed by Microsoft, the exFAT is a good choice if you plan to use the external hard drive with both macOS and Windows systems. Yet, you won’t get top performance on either. This choice is more appropriate for USB flash drives, although you can still use it for SDD and HDD units too.
The main issue with exFAT is that your drive will be more prone to fragmentation when used with Apple devices and is less stable than NTFS on Windows. If you really have to share the drive between Mac and Windows machines, that’s your best option though.
MS-DOS
Macs also support FAT32 drives, marked as FAT in Disk Utility. This format should be avoided at all costs unless you’re dealing with a really old Windows computer, which you really have to use in parallel with your Mac system.
Typically, there is no reason to choose this option unless you’re planning to use the external hard drive on a Windows XP or earlier machine.
Part 2: How to Format an External Hard Drive Mac?
Now that you know which format to choose, it’s time to learn how to format an external hard drive for Mac. There are essentially two methods, with Disk Utility or Time Machine function.
Note: If you plan to format an older external drive, perhaps one you used with another device, make sure to backup all data before proceeding. Formatting is a permanent procedure that can’t be reversed. While there are data recovery software you can use if you lost data, it is always better to prevent.
That said, here’s how to format an external hard drive Mac:
Method 1: Format Mac Hard Drive with Disk Utility
Disk Utility is a utility application proprietary to macOS that is used to both format and manage internal and external disks. Here’s how to use it:
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.
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. Then, on the top side under the Disk Utility, click on the Erase button.
Step 3 Follow the on-screen prompts to select the desired file system and allow the drive to format. That’s it! After the process is complete, you can either start using the drive or choose to create partitions on it.
Method 2: Format Mac Hard Drive with Time Machine
Formatting an external hard drive with Time Machine is as easy as formatting it with Disk Utility. Time Machine, however, gives you the possibility to create an automatic backup of the data on your hard drive before formatting it.
Before you proceed, therefore, you should first set up the external drive to use with Time Machine.
To do this, open System Preferences and select Time Machine after you’ve connected the external drive to your Mac.
Now, click on Select Disk and select the desired drive from the list. Click on the Use Disk button. At this point, the system will run an automatic backup two minutes after you’ve clicked on the Use Disk button, or you can proceed with the formatting if the hard disk is empty.
To format an external hard drive for Mac with Time Machine, you must follow the steps below.
Step 1 Open Finder, Applications, then go to Utilities and Disk Utility.
Step 2 Follow the steps above to format the drive, and then you can use it with Time Machine on your Mac system.
Part 3: Bonus Tip – Data Recovery from Formatted Hard Drive on Mac
Sometimes, it may happen that you accidentally formatted an external hard drive containing important data. Whether it’s your wedding pictures or your bachelor’s degree thesis, chances are you want to get that data back as quickly as possible.
If you have a newer version of Mac, you can use the Apple Time Machine to recover your canceled files, or you could choose to use external software, such as iSkysoft.
1. Recover Data with Apple Time Machine
In the former hypothesis, you can try to recover your data with the Time Machine. This app is Apple’s backup feature present on the newer systems. If you followed the steps above before formatting the hard drive with Time Machine and allowed the app to execute the backup, then there are high chances that you can recover any lost data without too much hassle.
To do so, just launch the Time Machine and browse through the folders to see if it has saved the files you require.
For easier browsing, you can use the time stamp feature on the right side of the screen and select the date or time when you executed the backup.
Once you found the files, simply click on Restore to get them back.
2. Recover Data with iSkysoft Software
If you didn’t use the Time Machine function or couldn’t find the files you need, you can try to recover any lost files with trusted third-party software, such as iSkysoft.
Recoverit (IS)
A Life Saver to Solve Your Data Loss Problems!
- This easy-to-use software allows you to recover unlimited lost or deleted files from your Mac device, including photo, video, and audio data, document files, and more.
- It supports all types of Mac files irrespective of their extension.
- The application is compatible with both internal and external drives, USB pens, memory cards, and other hardware, so you can rest assured it will retrieve your data if it’s there.
- It can retrieve data from accidentally deleted files, lost or formatted partitions, data lost due to virus attacks, system crashes, or data lost by the Time Machine.
- It is free to download and supports all leading macOS versions, including the 10.14 release.
3,165,867 people have downloaded it
This system is also very easy to use, in just three easy steps:
Step 1 Install the application and choose the desired location
Download and install the software on your Mac computer, then open it and select the external hard drive, partition, or location where you want to retrieve data.
Step 2 Start the scan to retrieve your lost data
Click the Start button. The software will now scan the selected drive and display all retrieved data in an easy-to-scour list.
Step 3 Preview the recovered files and save them in your chosen location
Review and select the target files, then launch the recovery process. That’s it. The software will restore your lost data.
Conclusion
As you can see, how to format an external hard drive Mac is not particularly complicated. The Disk Utility allows you to format the desired drive to the desired system in a blink of an eye. Backing up the data on your drive with Time Machine also allows you to avoid the recovery hassle.
If you still lost some data, you even know which software to use to recover all lost files.
Now it’s your turn. Use this guide to format your external drive, download, and use the data recovery software if needed, and don’t forget to share this article with your Mac-addicted friends. They might make good use of it too.
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. 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):
What Format Should I Use For Mac Os Sierra 10 13
/dev/sdaX is the partition you want to format.
What Format Should I Use For Mac Os Sierra Dmg
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.
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…
What Format Should I Use For Mac Os Sierra Download
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!