Does Macos High Sierra Still Read Hfs+ Drive
The easiest way to add storage to your Mac is to buy an external hard bulldoze. Once yous accept it, your beginning task is to pick a suitable file system for that drive depending on your intended usage.
With the Disk Utility app, you can hands format the bulldoze, give information technology a label, or even partition information technology and create multiple volumes. Allow'southward wait at the all-time file system formats to utilize for your Mac'due south external drive.
How to Format Your Drive With Disk Utility
One time you lot've bought a new external storage drive, connect it to your Mac. Information technology'll likely be already formatted, either for Windows (using NTFS) or for maximum compatibility (using FAT32). For a Mac user, neither of these file systems is desirable.
Open up the Disk Utility app. In the left panel, y'all'll run into the listing of internal and external drives separately. Now choose View > Show All Devices to see the storage device at the top level, then the container, and finally any volumes that are in the container.
In the sidebar, select the external storage device. Exist certain to choose the device, not the volume or volumes information technology contains. In the toolbar, click Erase. Type in the deejay name yous want, and then select your preferred option for both Format and Sectionalization Scheme.
Note: Y'all'll lose all the data in the external bulldoze, make sure to back it upwards.
If you see bug while formatting, read our guide on how to unlock your Mac external drive.
Here are some questions that you lot should evaluate before formatting the disk:
- Exercise y'all wish to use the external drive on other Macs? If yep, then find out the Bone version and model.
- Is the external drive for Time Motorcar backup or not?
- Do y'all desire to share the bulldoze with a Windows machine? If yeah, practice you lot have a backup plan of that drive in case the data gets corrupted?
Mac File Systems Explained
Disk Utility allows you to cull from a variety of file arrangement formats. Let'due south accept a detailed wait at each of them, what they're used for, and which you should pick for your external drive.
Apple File Organization (APFS)
APFS is Apple's modernistic file system, first launched in early 2017 for iOS devices. The experimental support of APFS was get-go seen in macOS Sierra. In High Sierra, SSD boot drives were converted to APFS upon installation. As of macOS Mojave, fusion drives and HDDs were also upgraded to APFS.
The current Apple File Organization documentation highlights many improvements over HFS+. It makes common operations such as copying files and folders instantaneous. Yous can also manage free space on the drives efficiently, re-create-on-write metadata scheme to improve performance, thereby reducing chances of information abuse, and increased focus on encryption.
When to Use APFS:
- If speed and convenience are your top priorities and cost is non an event. An external SSD gives yous the best performance over APFS, provided you don't need to use the bulldoze with other pre-Sierra Macs.
- On macOS Big Sur, Apple tree lets you format an external drive and cull APFS for Fourth dimension Machine. However, y'all won't exist asked this option for the already formatted HFS+ deejay.
- Fourth dimension Auto backups to APFS are impressive when compared to HFS+. Information technology's fast, consumes less space, which means more room for backups, has greater resistance to data corruption, and copies cloned or sparse files efficiently.
- Fourth dimension Motorcar volumes formatted as APFS will only work with Macs running Large Sur or afterward. If you connect that disk to Catalina, Time Machine won't recognize information technology.
- You tin but access drives formatted with APFS on Windows through third-political party apps. Here are some of the best apps that read-write APFS on Windows.
Mac Bone Extended (HFS+)
Mac OS Extended, also known every bit HFS+ (Hierarchical File Organisation Plus), was the chief file system used for Mac organization storage from 1998 until APFS launched in 2017. If you bought a Mac between those dates, it shipped with macOS (or Bone X, every bit it was known) installed on an HFS+ volume.
When to Use HFS+:
- If yous accept older Macs (pre–2016), particularly those likewise old to update to a contempo version of macOS, choosing HFS+ volition enable y'all to use your external drive with those machines.
- For Time Automobile backups, use MacOS Extended (Journaled) if it's a mechanical hard bulldoze or if y'all're using macOS Catalina or earlier. Even if you're using SSD equally a Fourth dimension Machine bulldoze, information technology'due south not compatible with APFS.
- You can only access drives formatted with HFS+ on Windows through third-party apps. Manufacturers like Seagate lets yous read and write information interchangeably on Windows and Mac without formatting the external drive.
Extended File Allotment Table (exFAT)
This was designed by Microsoft to provide similar compatibility to FAT32 without the pesky limitations. exFAT is the preferred file format for flash storage drives that you share between Windows and Mac. exFAT has no realistic file or partition size limits. It too doesn't require complicated ACLs and file attribution system like NTFS.
When to Use exFAT:
- Both Mac and Windows offering full read and write support for exFAT. If y'all frequently share files between your Windows-using friends and family, it's the ideal format.
- As highlighted from this file organisation functionality comparison from Microsoft, exFAT does not support journaling, nor does it accept born encryption. You may lose data in the event of a crash.
MS-DOS (Fatty)
Apple tree also includes support for FAT32, labeled as MS-DOS (Fat) in Disk Utility. You should more often than not avert using FAT32 for any purpose unless you're dealing with an old computer or device.
When to Apply MS-DOS (FAT):
- Wink drives y'all purchase will often come formatted with FAT32 for maximum compatibility with onetime computers (likely running Windows XP) and even games consoles.
- Individual files on a FAT32 drive can't be over 4GB in size. Likewise, the segmentation must non exceed 8TB. exFAT is almost always a ameliorate choice.
Support for NTFS Drives
NTFS, which replaced FAT32 with the arrival of Windows XP, is still the ascendant Windows file organization. FAT32 had many serious limitations, including a maximum file size of 4GB and a partition size of 8TB. This makes it unsuitable for virtually mod purposes.
macOS tin can read NTFS file systems natively, but it is unable to write to them. To enable write admission, you should use a third-political party utility similar Paragon NTFS for Mac or Tuxera NTFS for Mac. These utilities take been tested far more thoroughly, and allow you to write to your existing NTFS volumes and format new drives to NTFS.
Using an External Hard Drive for Time Machine Backups
Ideally, the best file format is the one that covers your needs across all the platforms you use. For the all-time Time Car compatibility, reformat your device with the GUID partition map scheme and HFS+ or APFS file format.
The release of Big Sur with APFS compatibility for external drives will change the way we store or take backups. And equally SSDs have become cheaper, we recommend using ane of them for Time Machine and information backups.
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