Buzz
Fortunately, macOS comes equipped with Disk Utility, a built-in tool for partitioning drives on Mac. Refer to Mytour's article for a step-by-step guide on how to format and organize your Mac's hard drive.
Important Reminder: Before proceeding with formatting the Mac drive, it's crucial to back up and store all essential data on an external drive or cloud storage service.
Choosing the Standard Format for Hard Drives
Here are some standard hard drive formats that you can choose and use to format your Mac drive:
- APFS (Apple File System): APFS is a completely new file system format, used as the default on macOS High Sierra. Its main advantage lies in enhanced data security and improved accuracy in data calculations. However, limitations include incompatibility and the inability to read data on Mac devices running versions before macOS High Sierra. Additionally, APFS only functions with SSD or USB drives.
- MacOS Extended (Journaled), also known as HFS+: As mentioned earlier, Apple replaced the HFS+ file system format with APFS in macOS High Sierra. If your Mac hasn't been updated to High Sierra, HFS+ is the default file system format.
In addition, there are options like MacOS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted), which is useful if you want to carry a laptop or external drive without allowing anyone to access the drive's content in case it gets lost. With this option, you can encrypt the drive and require a password for access. Choose MacOS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled, Encrypted) if your data file names require uppercase letters. While Windows can read HFS+ drives, it cannot write data to the system.
- MS-DOS FAT, also known as FAT32: Operating systems like Mac, Windows, or Linux can read and write in FAT32 format. So if you often share drive data with friends or colleagues, allowing them to access the files you store on the drive, FAT32 is a perfect choice.
One limitation is that FAT32 is an older file system, and files are limited to around 4GB or less. So if you frequently copy large files, such as movies, FAT32 is not a suitable option. Additionally, this file system format is not secure and more prone to disk errors.
- ExFAT: This formatting standard is similar to FAT32 mentioned above. Both Windows and Mac can read ExFAT-formatted drives. The major difference is that ExFAT can store files larger than 4GB.
- NTFS: NTFS is the default file system on Windows operating systems. macOS can only read and cannot write to this format, although third-party tools allow users to do so.
Formatting Hard Drive on Mac
Follow the steps below to format a hard drive on Mac:
Step 1: Open Disk Utility by accessing Applications => Utilities, or press Command + Space and type Disk Utility into the Search bar.
Step 2: In the Disk Utility window, you'll see a list of available drives on the left panel. Choose a drive you want to format.
Note: The formatting process will completely erase all data on the selected hard drive, so make sure to back up your important data before proceeding with the format.
Step 3: On the main window, click the Erase option.
Step 4: Disk Utility will automatically select a format to format the hard drive, which could be either APFS or Mac OS Extended (Journaled), depending on how the drive was originally formatted, whether you're using macOS High Sierra or an older version. If you want to choose a different format, click the Formatting menu to display other options. Here, select any format you prefer.
Step 5: Next, name the hard drive. Set any name you prefer.
Step 6: Click the Security Options button. This action opens a new window, allowing you to choose how to format the hard drive, with a slider offering options for Fastest and Most Secure. This step is crucial to ensure all files and data on your hard drive are safely erased.
Step 7: If you choose the Fastest option, the hard drive will only erase header information, and basic files will remain intact but hidden. This means others can still recover these files using data recovery software.
If you choose the second option, the screen will display the message 'This option writes a single pass of zeros over the entire disk.' This action will overwrite the entire hard drive.
Step 8: For enhanced security, slide the slider to the right to choose the third option, which overwrites the drive 3 times. Continue sliding the slider to the Most Secure option to overwrite the drive 7 times.
Step 9: Click Erase and wait until all files and data on the hard drive are ready to be deleted. A progress bar will be displayed on the screen to let users know when the process is complete.
Step 10: Finally, copy your files and data to the newly formatted hard drive.
Format Hard Drive on Both Mac and PC
If you want to format the hard drive to copy files on both Mac and PC, you can follow the instructions above, but choose the ExFAT format from the list of formatting options.
Format Hard Drive Using Time Machine
Time Machine still uses the HFS+ format (or Mac OS Extended). If using Time Machine to format the hard drive, you'll need to choose the HFS+ format, not APFS.
This Mytour article has just guided you on how to format the hard drive on Mac. Additionally, if you accidentally delete important files and data on your Mac, you can refer to the article on Mytour about recovering deleted files and photos on Mac to learn how to recover your data.
