A drive and a partition: How to understand the difference when erasing Mac disks When you want to format a hard drive, it helps to know the difference between a partition and a drive. Should I partition my 2TB hard drive or leave it as it is? I'm attempting to partition a 500gb external HDD to run bootcamp, but whenever I go into Disk Utility, the option to partition the drive is greyed out. Before you start, you should make sure to backup your entire Mac computer using Time Machine.
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- How To Partition An External Hard Drive
- Partition External Drive Mac
Most external hard drives are designed to work for Windows computers. So if you’re trying to connect an external hard drive to a Mac, you might have to format the drive before you can use it. Here’s how to do that:
How to Format a Hard Drive for Mac
Note: If you already used your external hard drive on a PC, be sure to back up any files on it. Formatting your drive will wipe out all the data in it.
- Connect an external hard drive to your Mac. Some external hard drives need to be plugged into an outlet to work.
- Go to Spotlight Search, type in Disk Utility, and click the first option. This will open the Disk Utility app, where you will find all the internal and external drives that are connected to your Mac.
- Then click View in the top-left corner of the window and select Show All Devices.
- Click the external hard drive you want to format. You can find this on the left-hand side of the screen under External Hard Drives. For the best result, select the disk (the highest option in the external tree).
- On the top menu, click Erase. This will open a small pop-up window with a warning that erasing the drive will delete all data stored on it and that it can’t be undone.
- Choose a name, format, and scheme for your drive. You can choose whatever name you want, and you should choose GUID Partition Map for the Scheme in most cases. However, you can choose between the following formats:
- Mac OS Extended (Journaled) is the best option for most Mac users since it is compatible with all Macs.
- APFS (Apple File System) is only for newer Macs running macOS 10.13 or later.
- exFAT is compatible with both PC and Mac.
- MS-DOS (FAT) is also compatible with Mac and PC, but you can only transfer files smaller than 4GB.
- When you’re done with providing the setup details, click Erase. This will immediately wipe the entire drive.
If you get an error message that states, “Erase process has failed. Click done tocontinue,” don’t freak out about it. This is an issue caused by Time Machine running on your externaldrive.
You will need to turn off Time Machine. You can do this by opening System Preferences and unchecking the boxnext to “Back Up Automatically”.Then click Options beside “ShowTime Machine in menu bar.” This will open another window. Click Cancel and it will turn off the Time Machine.
After you turn off the Time Machine, redo steps 4 to 6.
How to Partition anExternal Hard Drive on Mac
If you have formattedyour drive, you can then partition the drive, which will splitthe drive into two formats. This is perfect for anyone who uses Macs and PCsand wants to transfer files between the different operating systems with anexternal drive. Here’s how to do that:
- Open Disk Utility and select the drive that you want to partition. It is best to click View > Show All Devices so you can selectthe disk rather than a container.
- In the top menu, select Partition.
- Then click the plus sign at the bottom of the pie chart. Every time you click this plus sign, a new partition will becreated.
- Choose a name, format and size for each partition. You can also change the size of each of the partitions bydragging the white dots at the edge of the circle.
- Finally click Apply.
Why Partition a Hard Drive?
Partitioning an external hard drive allows youto have separate drives for Mac, PC, and any other operating system. Now youdon’t have to go out and buy hard drives for every computer you use.
A partition also gives you a dedicated space foryour Time Machine back-up files or a bootable backup of your operating system.It also helps protect your data if your drive gets infected with malware, as itwould be contained within one of the partitions.
Partition Drive Mac Os
Now that you know how to format an external drive for Mac, check out our blog on the difference between an HDD and an SDD.
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Whether you are a Mac user or Windows, having more than one hard disk partition is always recommended. That’s because if you ever end up messing the macOS, you can have your important files saved on the second partition. You can quickly restore the macOS without losing any data. Thunderbolt external hard drive for mac. It hardly takes a few minutes to create a hard drive partition on Mac.
Unpartition Mac Hard Drive
There is a built-in application on Mac called “Disk Utility,” but there are also some third-party partition manager apps that make the task a lot easier. Besides that, if you have Time Machine backup enabled, you have to keep it safe. You can attach an external HDD and create an exclusive partition for Time Machine backups. Even if you end up a corrupted Mac, you can restore it as new and then use your Time Machine backup to get things back.
Anyways, if you are new to this partitioning thing, follow this tutorial to partition a hard drive on mac.
How to Create a Hard Disk Partition in MacOS
Note: If you are creating a partition of your primary hard drive on Mac, make sure you close all other application. It is not mandatory but recommended for safety reasons.
Step #1. Open Disk Utility app on your Mac. You can either use the Launchpad from Dock or Spotlight search to find it.
Step #2. Now click on the Hard Drive from the left menu and then click on Partition at the top.
Note that you have to click on Hard Drive and not the partitions if you have any.
Step #3. Your drive will be displayed as a pie chart on the left. Right below the pie chart, there’s a “+” Click on it.
![Drive Drive](https://static.makeuseof.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/31.png)
Step #4. At the next screen, name the partition if you wish to and then, enter the size of the partition. Make sure you keep enough space for the macOS and not shrink it too small. Now click on “Apply” at the bottom-right.
How To Partition An External Hard Drive
Notes app for mac and iphone. Step #5. At the pop-up, click on “Partition.” You’ll get one more pop-up, click on “Continue.”
That’s it. The partitioning process will begin immediately. As said earlier, make sure you have closed all your apps to make sure there is no data loss or corruption issue.
The process of partitioning may take some time depending on the size of the partition. Also, your Mac may become unresponsive, don’t panic. After the process is completed, you can click “Done” and head over to Finder app to check the newly created partition.
Wrapping up
Partitions are a great way to keep your data organized. But a thing to note here is that the boot partition should have at least 100GB of space to store cache files. Even though the Mac doesn’t use that much of the space, but it surely affects the performance of your PC experience.
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What partition structure you have set on your Mac? And why? Share your recommendations for other users by commenting below.
The founder of iGeeksBlog, Dhvanesh, is an Apple aficionado, who cannot stand even a slight innuendo about Apple products. He dons the cap of editor-in-chief to make sure that articles match the quality standard before they are published.
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