how to format external hard drive mac wd

With FAT32, it is recommended that the volume/partition size of the external hard drive not exceed 32 GB. You will be able to copy data from, but not to, the external hard drive. Do not use NTFS formatted drives.įor non-GoFlex drives, Mac OS X 10.3 Panther or later works with local NTFS-formatted volumes, but the volume will be read-only. Using a FAT32 formatted drive within the Macintosh environment is only recommended for a short period of time to transfer data.ĭata corruption will possibly occur when using FAT32 over an extended period of time in a Macintosh. Also keep in mind, that you will have a 4 GB file transfer limitation. See Document ID: 200895 for instructions. It is only possible to read FAT and FAT32 formatted drives in a Macintosh with OS 10.2 or earlier. You may also format your external drive into FAT32 for use between Windows and Mac computers. This is the best solution Seagate offers for transferring data between Windows and Mac computers. See Document ID: 219103 for more information. The GoFlex line of drives includes an NTFS driver, which can make NTFS file systems usable in MacOS. To use MacOS native backup systems like Time Machine, please check with their manufacturer documentation. Here are some examples:įile system compatibility between operating systems.See our How To section for how-to videos and other resources to help you set up your backup program.Many Seagate and Maxtor-brand drives include backup programs, and you may use these as well as manual methods to perform backups. To use a backup software, simply install the software that came with your drive and configure the backup to run when you launch it or on a scheduled basis.To backup your data manually, please see Document ID: 206295 for instructions, Remember that you may always backup manually, whether or not you are also using a backup software.There are four main ways to save data (or 'backup') to your external drive: manually (using the copy & paste or the drag & drop method), creating image/clone backups, using a backup software, and using backup programs included within Windows or MacOS. To copy the data to the external hard drive: Please see the ' File system compatibility between operating systems' section below. Also, please note there may be a file system compatibility issue. Applications will not function when they are copied to a different system. pictures, documents, music, etc.) and not applications. It is recommended that you only copy data (i.e.

In most cases you can use your external hard drive to copy data from one computer to another.

How to format external hard drive mac wd