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Now that we have formatting and file system basics out of the way, it’s time to show you how to format your external drive. Alternatively, you could dump the files from your drive to a cloud storage service, such as, format the drive and put your files back on it (read our review, and check out our cloud storage providers comparison). Whichever file system your hard drive is shipped with, that’s what you have to use if you don’t want to remove all information from the drive. That’s because those file systems work across platforms while NTFS and HFS Plus don’t. If you’ve checked out a sideloading guide, such as our Kodi sideloading guide, you probably saw recommendations to format to ExFAT or FAT32. We hope it’s clear now why understanding file systems is important. It’s limited on Windows machines, but Apple users will be able to read and write to HFS Plus-formatted drives without issues.

How to format wd easystore portable hard drive for mac#

HFS Plus: Similar to how NTFS is default file system for Windows, HFS Plus is the default file system for Mac operating systems.

It can’t store files larger than 4GB, though, so it has fallen out of favor in recent years. FAT32 also works across Linux, Windows and macOS, and in years past, it was the de facto option for flash drives.

FAT32: This is the older, uglier cousin of ExFAT.

Though not as prevalent as NTFS, you’ll often find flash drives and external solid-state drives formatted to ExFAT out of the box because multi-platform support and the lack of file size restrictions make it an ideal choice for plug-and-play setups. Windows and macOS can read and write data to ExFAT.

ExFAT: This isn’t exclusive to any OS.

You can read and write on Windows platforms, but macOS and Linux users will only be able to read data from an NTFS-formatted drive. Like most file systems, NTFS is restricted once you move outside of Windows.

NTFS: This is what Windows uses by default.

Because of that, we’re going to go over the most commonly used file system options so you’ll know what’s what. The one yours uses largely depends on the drive and the computer OS you’re using. Unfortunately, there isn’t a de facto file system that all hard drives use. Beforehand, just be sure your files are backed up with an online backup service, such as Backblaze(read our Backblaze review).īefore getting into the formatting process, though, it’s important to go over what you’ll be formatting the drive with: a file system.įile systems are what operating systems use to store information on a storage device.

How to format wd easystore portable hard drive install#

In the same way a fresh install of your OS can solve most issues, reformatting your hard drive is a critical step in troubleshooting problems. Outside of formatting for initial use, you may need to reformat your hard drive if you encounter errors. In fact, that’s one of our recommended troubleshooting steps in our how to solve an external hard drive not showing up guide. Most external drives come ready to use on your computer, but in rare cases, you’ll need to format your drive. The data isn’t erased completely, but we’ll touch more on that later. Instead, formatting is used to get the hard drive to a state in which it can be used by the computer, which requires all written data to be erased from the drive. Though that’s true to a degree, it’s not the sole purpose of the process. Most people associate hard drive formatting with erasing a hard drive. Let’s first talk about hard drive formatting, file systems and how formatting doesn’t necessarily erase all data from your drive. We’ll show you how to format your hard drive on Mac and Windows computer operating systems, and explain key settings on both operating systems.īefore getting to that, though, it’s important to understand what hard drive formatting is. In this guide on how to format external hard drives, we’re going to help you make sure your portable disk works with everything. It can also be used to prep a hard drive for use with another operating system. Formatting allows you to overwrite all the information on the hard drive, resetting the file structure and how the drive interacts with the operating system. If you’ve run into issues with your hard drive, formatting is one of the first steps you should take to troubleshoot it.

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