in this video I'm going to show you how
to erase or format an external drive or
USB stick so it works on Mac there's
also the option where if you need that
external drive to work on both Windows
and Mac but I'm gonna cover all of the
options that you need to know to format
a flash drive an SSD an external drive
any of those things I'm gonna talk about
all the things in the video to come my
name is Xavier Mercedes I do video tech
tutorials and gear reviews on this
channel if you like that kind of stuff
hit the subscribe button let's dive
right into it to start off with if you
have any other external hard drives
connected to your computer I highly
suggest ejecting them now that way you
don't make a mistake and format the
wrong Drive which is something we do not
want in this example I'm going to be
using an 8 terabyte Seagate drive that I
got off Amazon but all the information I
talked about is going to be applicable
to thumb drives or whatever drive that
you're using when purchasing new
external hard drives unless it says
something on the box itself by default
most drives come formatted for Windows
machines as dictated right here with
this Windows NT file system or NTFS for
short
since this drive is formatted for
Windows I can read it on this Mac but I
can't write to it as you can see here by
this no circle symbol when I'm trying to
drag a file on to the drive itself
another common thing you'll see is maybe
a software already installed on the hard
drive itself that will help you format
the drive for Mac but we want to
completely ignore this because I think
it's safer to always format with the
software that comes with your Mac
operating system and that software that
I'm talking about is called Disk Utility
to get to this I normally just go up to
the search bar and type in Disk Utility
this gives you an overview of the drive
inside your computer as well as
everything connected to your computer at
this point in time select the drive that
you want to format and I want to stress
here that you do not want to be
formatting your Macintosh HD that's a
completely different tutorial for a
different time because that's your
internal hard drive so with my Seagate
external hard drive highlighted I'm
gonna go up to the word a race now I can
rename my disk what it's going to be
after I'm done renaming I'm gonna go
down to format and even though this is
grayed out for me
I can still click on it and now we have
available the list of all the different
ways that you can format this Drive and
really quick if you don't have all of
these options available to you like with
my samsung t5 SSD when I go to erase in
hit format I only have a select few
options available to me to fix this one
thing that may work
you gonna hit cancel on this go up to
view and we're only looking at the
volumes inside the devices so we're
gonna go to show all devices notice that
I was only clicking on the Samsung t5 so
if I go to the highest drive in the
hierarchy right here now I go to erase
and then I go to format it still doesn't
show all those options what you would
need to do is go to scheme and go to G
UID partition map and now if you were to
go to format you have all of the options
available to you let me give you a brief
summary of what you're looking at and
then I'll dive into deeper detail for
those that want to really know which
format is best for you ap FS and Mac OS
extended journaled will work on your Mac
only ms-dos is an older format but it is
compatible with Linux Windows and Mac
and exFAT is the one that you want to
choose if you want to be compatible with
Windows and Mac but to explain these
more so you understand which one is
right for you at the top we have AP FS
which stands for Apple file system this
is the newest file system from Apple and
it comes after Mac OS extended journaled
which I'll get to a little bit later but
this format is perfect in completely
optimized for SSDs and little thumb
stick drives basically any drive that
doesn't have any moving components in it
this is not for external hard drives
that have a magnetic spinning disk in it
so do not use this ap FS with external
hard drives that use a spinning disk use
it for little thumb stick drives and
SSDs the reason being is because the way
that it's set up it's more stable in
terms of combating data corruption so
say you got a bug or your power shut off
completely it would be able to recover
those files better than some of the
other formats on the list and also Apple
says that this format is more focused on
encryption so if that's important to you
then definitely choose a PFS I did run a
test of formatting the same thumb drive
to a PFS exFAT and Mac extended
journaled and then I transferred the
same 900 megabyte file from my
computer's hard drive to that thumb
drive and what surprised me is that the
older formats of mac extended journaled
and exFAT were actually much faster than
ap FS so I believe in AP FS copying
files is actually faster when you do
them internally on the drive at
but from copying files drive to drive in
the tests that I ran Mac extended
journaled and exFAT was faster than
using a PFS now let me bring up a couple
more caveats of why you would not want
to use a PFS number one I'll just
reiterate on spinning hard discs you do
not want to use this format to this
format only works on Mac computers three
of those Mac computers they have to be
running high sierra or above in order
for the drive to get recognized
that's 10.13 so if you're using any
computer below ten point 13s this is not
what you want to format your drive to
and one last one I'm just gonna read off
Apple's own website if you're preparing
a Time Machine backup disk or a bootable
installer you should choose Mac OS
extended journaled for any disk that you
plan to use with Time Machine or for a
bootable installer the next format down
the list is the predecessor to ap FS and
that's Mac OS extended journaled this
has been the proprietary file system for
a very long time until a PFS came along
and for the most part it's safe to
format your drive to this if you are
just going to be using Mac computers so
whether you have a hard disk a flash
drive or SSD whatever that may be
Mac OS extended journaled is going to
work on that drive on your Mac operating
system and because my Seagate external
hard drive has a spinning disk in it I'm
going to be choosing Mac OS extended
journaled for this example but let me
explain the other options available to
you next on the list is ms-dos fat and
this is compatible with Linux Windows
and Mac but I'm just going to throw it
out there that probably 99.9% of you
will not want to use this format mainly
because it has a cap at 4 gigabyte files
meaning that if you try and put a file
on there that is larger than 4 gigabytes
it will not allow you to do that so if
this is a drive that you want to be
compatible with both Windows and Mac
you're going to want to choose X fat now
X fat isn't as efficient on Mac
computers as something like ap FS and
Mac extended journaled but obviously it
has the huge advantage of being cross
compatible for both reading and writing
on Windows and Mac so if that's
something that is a must for you then
you're going to want to choose X fat
and just to touch on case-sensitive and
encryption options with case sensitive I
really wouldn't suggest doing this
unless you know what you're doing but
it's a way of looking at the file system
and if you were to put two files in a
folder say one was labeled hit that like
button starting with a lowercase H and
another file was labeled hit that like
button with a uppercase H then it would
see that as the same file name because
it's not case-sensitive if you were to
format the drive to be case sensitive
then it would see those as two separate
files but again I don't suggest doing
that unless you needed it for a specific
purpose and you knew what you were doing
if you encrypt the drive you'll have
added security but it may come at the
cost of just a little bit slower
performance because of that added
security getting back to this example I
am going to use Mac OS extended
journaled because I have that spinning
disk in my Seagate and you can go click
on security options if you really wanted
to prevent a disk recovery application
from recovering the files after you've
formatted it but I've never used this
drive before so I'm not really concerned
about that so I'm gonna hit OK and then
erase it will unmount erase and then
remount your disk I choose not to use it
as a time machine back up hit done and
now I can see my relabeled Seagate v
hard drive it's Mac OS extended
journaled and there is a gigabyte and a
half of information on there but now
this is compatible with my Mac computer
as I can show you by dropping this file
onto the drive something that I wasn't
able to do in the beginning of the video
when the drive was formatted to Windows
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and I'll put a playlist on the screen
right now that links to a whole bunch of
other Mac OS tips and tricks until next
episode I hope you're out there living a
life of abundance