Accidental file deletions or file corruptions can be a serious problem, especially when we are not relying on cloud services. How To Format A USB Drive On A Mac?
To format a USB drive, follow these steps: –. Connect USB drive into the given socket. The latest MacBook Pro or another MacBook has only USB-C type connectors, so if you have the recent Mac’s, you will require an adaptor to convert from USB-C to USB-A. Click the fresh Finder window. Then select the drive.
Note: – Formatting will wipe the entire data, so make sure the drive contains no important data on it. Copy any crucial data on your Mac. Next navigate to Applications and select Utilities, then select Disk Utility by double-clicking on it.
From the sidebar menu, select USB drive. Now select Erase from toolbar that is situated at top of window. Next a window will drop down; here type a specific name for formatted drive. Next from the drop-down menu, select the type of format you want.
Download for Mac Download for PC. To format USB to FAT32 with Disk Utility will erase all data on the flash drive, so before you doing so, please do remember to The reason why formatted/erased data on USB or other storage devices on Mac computer can be still restored is that those formatted.
If the USB flash drive, has some sensitive data, click on Security tab. This will let you choose how securely you want the files to be deleted. Just move the slider to right, the further it moves, the more passes the erase feature will make meaning that the files will be removed discreetly. But keep in mind this step will increase the time of the format. Finally, click on OK and then select Erase. This is a complete process of formatting a USB drive on Mac. Don’t buy a new machine when you can upgrade your MacBook Pro with an SSD.
Read and know the step. While Reformatting A USB Drive, Which File Format Should Be Used? Image source: – engadget Depending on the currently running version of Mac- MacOS high Sierra or older, there are two available choices for file format- Mac OS Extended and APFS. Now, below are some pointers that will help you to select the best format according to your requirements:. If you have a Mac that runs the operating system (macOS) older than High Sierra, then it is crucial to format a thumb drive using the Mac OS Extended format.
The reason behind this is that a reformatted disk in the APFS file format, will not load in the Mac. If you are planning to format a flash drive on a Mac, select the APFS format as they are SSD (solid state drive) optimized. Even if you consider reformatting a hard drive, APFS is a better option as it is fast and reliable. If you are going to utilize USB drive for Time Machine backups, then go for Mac OS Extended. This is because APFS disk doesn’t support Time Machine backup and even if you use this file format, it will give the option to reformat USB drive with Mac OS Extended. However, any APFS formatted drive can be backed up to a Mac OS extended Time Machine drive. Steps To Format A USB Drive To Fat32 On Mac: Before we learn how to format a USB drive to FAT32 on Mac, it is necessary to learn why to do?
And the reason behind this is as follows: –. FAT32 format can be read and written to on both the operating system- Mac and Windows. There are many people who like to use the drive on both Mac and Windows, and others use it as a device for storage for TV shows and thus reformatting to FAT32 is necessary. The only limitation with FAT32 is that the individual files should have a 4GB size and not more which poses a problem when USB drive has bigger size files. However, in such cases, exFAT can be used as it no such limitation and can run on OS.
Beyond macOS skin, there’s a whole another world known as Mac command line. This article will describe how to use. Here Are The Steps You Should Follow: –. Into your Mac, plug in the USB drive. Next, select Applications Utilities and then launch Disk Utility.
From the disk utility sidebar, select the USB drive. From the disk utility toolbar, chose Erase. Give the formatted disk a name and select either MS-DOS (FAT32) or ExFat from the format menu.6.
Finally, select erase. Now your disk/drive will be reformatted to either FAT32 or ExFAT depending upon your selection So, these are steps that you will need to follow while reformatting your USB drive. Remember that before formatting; check the drive for important data so that nothing crucial is deleted. For clarity on any doubts, feel free to connect with us in the comments section below.
Not many people are alert of these differences till they need to copy files into a storage formatted using the different file system. Mac OS X users are the ones who would likely stumble into these file format problems. In case you are a Mac users, here are overviews of different file format systems, and a way to select which format to use for your USB drive to make sure compatibility with other operating systems.
Choosing File Format System in Mac Now the USB drive makes it one of the most used storage media. It is used to sharing and distributing files via USB drive. But that trend also makes file system compatibility problem more apparent. There are numerous different formats available and it will depend on your usage. Below is the overview of the commonly used file systems.
FAT32 This file system is the next generation of FAT that comes a lengthy way from the DOS. Almost all USB flash drive comes pre-formatted with FAT 32 file system because it almost works everywhere. The disadvantage of this system is that it doesn’t support files with size bigger than 4 GB and storage partition bigger than 2 TB. If we only deal with simple documents, small movie files, or other kinds of files below 4 GB, and your storage drive is 2 TB or smaller, we must be fine with this file system. ExFAT If we still need the universal support, but will exchange files bigger than 4 GB, we might need to use ExFAT file system. This format works on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. The system is commonly used for shared hard drive that is plugged into computer most of the time.
But it’s not as well-suited as FAT32 as there are devices that don’t support it, such as Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. NTFS This file system is perfect for people works among Windows computer. The file format on Windows, supports big files, and can read and write faster than FAT32 provided that other factors that influence speed are similar.
The format has even less compatibility than ExFAT. Mac OS X and some Linux distributions can only read NTFS-formatted disk without the help of third-party software. NTFS is ideal for internal drives on Windows computers. OS X Extended. Formatting Disk in Mac OS X Although external drives come factory pre-formatted, there are instances where we want to re-format the drive.
For example, if we need to change the file format of the drive, create a bootable installer, or if one of your Windows-user neighbours ask your help to format clean virus-infected USB flash drive. There are several ways to format the USB drive in Mac OS X environment.
Using Disk Utility The easiest way to format a disk in Mac OS X is using Disk Utility. It’s Mac’s disk maintenance tool. To format a USB flash drive, simply plug the drive into your Mac, and choose it from Disk Utility’s sidebar menu. How to Format USB Drive on Mac Then choose the Erase tab from the top bar. A pop-up menu will appear, and you can customize many options here. How to Format USB Drive on Mac First is the type of file system that you want to use. Please refer to the previous section above to find the formatting type that fit your need.
Formatting Issue Due to the differences in handling file formatting system among different OSes, there might be some issues that arise. Some users reported that their USB drives, which were formatted using Disk Utility, can’t be recognized by Windows machines. The solution for the problem, you might need to enable Disk Utility’s MBR (Master Boot Record) option by closing the Disk Utility, and type this command line in Terminal: DEFAULTS WRITE COM.APPLE.DISKUTILITY ADVANCED-IMAGE-OPTIONS 1 Then relaunch Disk Utility and format the disk using the ExFat system. Reading and Writing to Windows NTFS Formatted Disk While Mac users can correctly choose the file system to ensure compatibility with other OSes, most Windows users don’t even know the existence of different formatting system. Once in a while, you might stumble into NTFS formatted external drive.
Mac OS X can read NTFS-formatted drives, so you can copy files from them. The problem arises when you need to write files to those drives. Currently, the suggested safe and hassle-free way Mac OS X can write to NTFS drives is with the help of third-party software. Two most popular alternatives to such software are (US$ 19.99 with ten-day free trial) and (US$ 31 with fifteen-day free trial). If you have Seagate external hard drive, you can download the free Seagate version of Paragon NTFS for Mac. The other options to write to NTFS from Mac OS X are using free third-party software or enabling Mac OS X experimental NTFS support, but both options require messing around with the system through Terminal and known to cause problems with NTFS file system. So, they are not suggested. The Recommended Scenario The file formatting settings recommend for Mac users are use the HFS+ for the internal hard drive and backup drives and use ExFAT for USB flash drives and other external drives.
This setting enables to have the best computing practice while keeping the compatibility with other OSes. We might need to select for one of the third-party NTFS apps if we need to write a lot of data to NTFS drives.