Storage space has always been one of the major concerns while using any gadget. No matter how much space any device has, we still crave for some extra gigabytes—one can never get enough of it! Whether it’s your Mac, iPhone or any other device, they all come with a specific finite amount of space which sooner or later gets occupied with our personal data. So, if you have ever wondered how to partition a hard drive on Mac you’ve landed at the right spot.
To format partitions, Windows and Mac have built-in utility tools to help users manage and format these partitions. Using these inherent software is easy, but if you need something that is easier, there are plenty of third party software available to help you.
You can upgrade your Mac’s hard drive in two ways—either you can upgrade it internally via SSD or by connecting your Mac to an external hard drive. Want to how to format your external hard drive? Learn here, how to erase and format an external hard drive.
Before we proceed further, first let’s understand a few perks to partition hard drive on Mac Benefits of Partitioning your Mac’s Hard Drive One of the most common reason why individuals tend to partition their Mac’s hard drive is when they want to run more than one operating system like Windows and Mac. So, once you are through on how to partition external hard drive of your Mac you can easily manage both the operating system separately as if they’re running on two different devices. Just Remember Before you decide on partitioning your Mac’s hard drive here’s a quick tip which’ll help you get through with this process without any hassle. You can download tool which can optimize your Mac’s hard drive and make your device a lot more stable. It can enhance your Mac’s speed with ease and improve your experience exclusively. So, before you partition your Mac’s hard drive just make sure you declutter the hard drive with a powerful and effective tool like. How to Partition your Mac’s Hard Drive or SSD There are basically two ways to disk partition your Mac: First is using Bootcamp and other is with the help of Disk utility.
Let’s discuss both of these ways in detail. Using Bootcamp If you’re willing to run Windows on your Mac, then this happens to be one of the most simple and powerful ways to partition hard drive on Mac. Mac’s inbuilt Boot Camp assistant eases down all the process and guides you with simple on-screen instructions.
Once you through with the process, you can run both operating system (Windows and Mac) on your MacBook. But apart from this reason, if you want to partition your Mac’s hard drive then you can use the second way which is via Disk Utility that we’ll be discussing in our next section. Using Disk Utility If you’re sole purpose is just to partition your Mac’s hard drive, then using a disk utility manager might be an ideal choice.
Disk utility acts like a smart Mac Partition manager and is a useful in-built Mac application that sits within your Utilities folder, inside Applications folder. Before your start up with this process, just make sure that you back up all your important data, create a clone on your entire hard drive, just in case anything goes wrong.
Here are a few things you might want to consider before you jump on partitioning your Mac’s hard drive via Disk utility. Clone your Mac’s hard drive.
To double check whether this clone works or not, plug the clone in and go to System Preferences Startup Disk. In this way you can make sure that the cloned drive is successfully working, and you can proceed to partition your Mac’s hard drive without any worries. How to Partition Mac Hard Drive via Disk Utility Here are few steps you need to follow to disk partition your Mac via Disk utility. Head on to Utilities Applications Folder or tap Command + Shift+ U key. Double-click the Disk Utility application.
Now select your Mac’s internal hard drive name. Tap on Partition. Tap the ‘+’ below Partition Layout.
Once the new partition appears, you can change the size of both disks accordingly. Assign a name to your newly partitioned disk drive. Tap on “Apply” to save changes. Read this to know how you can secure your Mac as it is important to keep it in mind if. If you’re unhappy with the disk partition, you can anytime revert back to old state. Tap on “Revert to un-partition hard drive” option on Mac.
Once you’ve successful partitioned your Mac’s hard drive, you can use it like an all new hard drive or internal SSD, store any data you like, upload anything you like! So fellas, here was a quick guide on how to partition a hard drive on Mac. For any other queries or feedback feel free to hit the below mentioned comment box.
If you have an external hard drive or USB flash drive that you’d like to use on both Macs and Windows PCs, choosing the right file system to format the drive can be confusing. Learn a few ways to make your drive Mac and PC friendly.
Need to access or transfer files between Mac and PC? As simple as this task sounds, it’s not very straightforward for inexperienced users. Since Mac OS X and Windows use totally different file systems, the way a drive is formatted can determine what type of computer it will work with. In fact, there are four ways you can format an external or USB flash drive to achieve varying degrees of compatibility between Macs and PCs. Let’s take a look at them: HFS+ Mac OS X’s native file system is HFS+ (also known as Mac OS Extended), and it’s the only one that works with Time Machine. But while HFS+ is the best way to format drives for use on Macs, Windows does not support it.
If you’re only going to be using your external or USB flash drive with certain PCs – such as at home or the office – you might be interested in a program called. When you install MacDrive on a Windows PC, it will be able to seamlessly read & write to HFS+ drives. This isn’t a good solution if you need your drive to work on any PC without installing software, though. NTFS The native Windows file system is NTFS, which is only partially compatible with Mac OS X. Macs can read files on NTFS drives, but it cannot write to them.
So if you need to get files from a PC to your Mac, NTFS is a decent option. However, you won’t be able to move files in the other direction, from Mac to PC.
FAT32 The most universally supported way to format your drive is with the FAT32 file system. It works with all versions of Mac OS X and Windows. Case closed, right? Well, not so fast. Unfortunately, FAT32 is a very old file system and has some technical limitations. For example, you cannot save files that are larger than 4GB on a FAT32-formatted drive.
This is a deal-breaker if you work with huge files. The other limitation is the total size of the partition.
If you format your FAT32 drive in Windows, the drive partition cannot be larger than 32GB. If you format it from a Mac running 10.7 Lion, the drive partition can be up to 2TB. Much better, except for that pesky 4GB limit. ExFAT The exFAT file system eliminates the two major deficiencies of FAT32: the largest partition and file sizes it supports are virtually unlimited by today’s standards. Awesome, it’s perfect!
Almost since exFAT is fairly new, it isn’t compatible with older Macs and PCs. Any Mac running 10.6.5 (Snow Leopard) or 10.7 (Lion) supports exFAT, while PCs running Windows XP SP3, Windows Vista SP1, and Windows 7 are compatible. If you know you’ll be using computers running updated versions of these operating systems, exFAT is the clear best choice.
Format a drive using Disk Utility on a Mac. Launch Disk Utility (Applications Utilities). Select your external hard drive or USB flash drive from the list on the left.
Click on the Erase tab. Select the format – Mac OS Extended (HFS+), MS-DOS (FAT32), or exFAT – then name the drive. Click the Erase button and the drive will start formatting. Be aware that formatting a drive deletes all of the files on it, so back up anything important before completing this step. Format a drive using Windows. Go to Computer (or My Computer in Windows XP).
Select your drive from the list and right-click on it. Choose Format from the contextual menu.
A window will pop up where you can choose the format – NTFS, FAT32, or exFAT. Make sure the allocation unit size is set to default and type in a volume label. Click Start to format the drive.
I did exactly what you said to do in order to format a LaCie 160gb external hard drive to exFat for use on a Mac (OSX 10.7 Lion) and a PC (Windows 7). Unfortunately, now my Mac doesn’t “see” the hard drive anymore and my PC tells me the device is not working properly (error Code 43 in Device Manager). Before reformatting from a NTFS, the LaCie worked fine on my Mac and my PC “saw” it but I couldn’t access it. It is connected via USB 2.0 and AC/DC power.
Where could I go or what resource(s) is/are available for me to solve this problem? I heard using a firewire might help. I just got a Seagate GoFlex Desk External Drive, and after reading your article, I tried to format it for ExFat but got an error: Invalid Option.
Seagate tells me that they do not support ExFat. They say “Reformatting a drive in ExFAT is something that we don’t support. It can be an unstable format that can cause data corruption without warning.” Have you found that other hard drive manufactures say they don’t support this format for the same reason? Should I turn the hard drive back in, and get a different one, where the manufacturer supports this format.
Is what Seagate says true? I just got two Western Digital 3TB external hard-drives. I want to be able to use them on both Mac & PC. When i go to format it on my Mac, FAT32 is not an option, and every time i try exFAT i also get an “error: Invalid Option”. I then tried to do this on two other Macs & it still wouldn’t work, but then I tried it on a work-mate’s Mac today & it formatted in exFAT fine How unstable is exFAT? I don’t want to lose the media i store on this drive.
I don’t mind formatting it in FAT32, but it’s not an option when trying to format this hard-drive. Any suggestions?
Is there a free formatting application that is good to use instead of using the “Disk Utility” on Mac.? I have an IMAC running OSX 10.7.5 I recently bought a Trekstor DataStation pocket light 500 GB external portable hard drive 2.5″ I need it to transfer 190 GB of video and audio files to give to an editor. I received it and a small paper inside said it’s not compatible with my IMAC. Only to READ files. I’m not sure what system the editor will use and after reading all the comments above, I’m really hesitant to re-format the disc before moving the files onto. Now the files are on another TrekStor external drive that the camera guy lent me.
I am not very technical and don’t want to screw anything up. Can anyone help?
I do hope you can help me with this I was using my sisters Mac temporarily and before giving it back to her I copied all my files onto a thumb drive. Tonight I copied those files to the hard drive of my PC laptop and removed them from the thumb drive. For whatever reason I am trying to open a few of the files in a certain program, but it keeps telling me that the file I am trying to access is not supported. Someone mentioned that maybe it has something to do with the thumb drive. I have no idea what to do and I am praying that I didn’t lose any of my files. Thanks so much!!
I’ve read too many posts from people having all sorts of problems using exFAT to consider using it. Maybe one day, but for now, “not ready for prime time!”. The best solution I found was: 1. Format your hard drive, or every partition on it, using NTSF. You’ll end up with a drive that is: – Stable, so your data is relatively safe (priority #1) – Capable of handling large files – Readable/writable in Win 7+ – But only readable in Mac OS X 2. Make the NTSF drive both readable and writable in Mac OS X.
There are different ways to do that. Method 1: Mac OS X is actually capable of writing to a NTSF drive, just not by default (don’t ask!). So you need to activate it: 1. Go to “utilities” and start the “terminal” app. (enter your password if prompted) 2.
Type (copy/paste): sudo nano /etc/fstab Press “return” Type: LABEL=TEST none ntfs rw,auto,nobrowse Press “return”, CTRL+O to save, CTRL+X to exit the terminal. Unmount your drive, then plug it back in. It won’t show up anymore. Back in the terminal, type: open /Volumes press “return” There’s your NTSF drive! Now you can do whatever you want with it in Mac OS X.
(tip: create an alias of the volumes so you don’t have to go back to the terminal every time) Another free method: “EaseUS ALL-IN-ONE Partition Manager” software I’ve not tried it myself, but I’ve only heard good things about it. You can download it here:. Make sure to download the “free for home user” version. The other methods involve using 3rd party drivers such as: Paragon NTFS or Tuxera NTFS. They’re not free, but they won’t break the bank. I hope this helps. Thank you so much for this easy to follow and understand explanation.
I have OS X 10.7.5 running Lion. Bought the new Passport 1T today and even though the package says it can run on MAC OS X, when I tried to format with the company instructions it wouldn’t let me and stated “It will only run on 10.8 or above”. I looked at my old passport in Utilities and it was formatted as NTFS (Mac OS Extended) and wanted to follow the exact same since my old Passport has been excellent for my needs. I formatted the new Passport with NTFS and it works like a charm.
Really appreciate how you explained everything in simple terms, so not only was I able to do the formatting, I also understand what I am doing and why. I can now drag and drop files on to the new passport and they copy fast. Thanks a bunch. About MacYourself MacYourself was established in July 2008 by founders (and Apple enthusiasts) Ant and Frankie P., who wanted to create a tips & tricks site geared towards the average or new Apple product user. The name itself was an accident, shouted by Frankie P. In a moment of frustration when he couldn’t think of anything clever.
Immediately, a light went off in Ant’s head and he eventually convinced Frankie P. That it wasn’t as ridiculous as it first seemed. About us or send a friendly message. It's great to hear from people! Need some guidance?
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