are there any mac apps that can format a blank hard drive in an external enclosure to different formats like fat 32, NTFS, & macs native format, I have put together my own external hard drives with 72rpm hard drives in external enclosures & I prefer my drives to be cross platform to use on both a mac & PC.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
apps that can format a blank external hard drive
- Thread starter Sossity
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Thanks, I will look into utilities, When I have the blank drive put together & plug it in for the first time into the mac, I just open up disk utility? or will it open automatically?
do external hard drives used with a mac need defragging like on windows? will 1 terabyte fat 32 formatted external hard drives work on a mac?
and some of these hard drives I have been using with windows, should I defrag them before switching & using on a mac?
do external hard drives used with a mac need defragging like on windows? will 1 terabyte fat 32 formatted external hard drives work on a mac?
and some of these hard drives I have been using with windows, should I defrag them before switching & using on a mac?
If they are HFS+ (Mac native format) then no. If they are a Windows format then whatever the Microsoft recommendation for that format is.
Typically Mac's don't need defragging
Disk Optimization
But there are utilities for it
iDefrag
Not sure how that would apply to an external disk
Disk Optimization
But there are utilities for it
iDefrag
Not sure how that would apply to an external disk
FAT32 (File Allocation Table)
- Read/Write FAT32 from both native Windows and native Mac OS X.
- Maximum file size: 4GB.
- Maximum volume size: 2TB
- Read/Write NTFS from native Windows.
- Read only NTFS from native Mac OS X
- To Read/Write/Format NTFS from Mac OS X: Install NTFS-3G for Mac OS X (free)
- Some have reported problems using Tuxera (approx 33USD).
- Native NTFS support can be enabled in Snow Leopard, but is not advisable, due to instability.
- Maximum file size: 16 TB
- Maximum volume size: 256TB
- Read/Write HFS+ from native Mac OS X
- Required for Time Machine or Carbon Copy Cloner backups of Mac internal hard drive.
- To Read/Write HFS+ from Windows, Install MacDrive
- To Read HFS+ (but not Write) from Windows, Install HFSExplorer
- Maximum file size: 8EiB
- Maximum volume size: 8EiB
- Supported in Mac OS X only in 10.6.5 or later.
- exFAT partitions created with OS X 10.6.5 are inaccessible from Windows 7
- Not all Windows versions support exFAT. See disadvantages.
- exFAT (Extended File Allocation Table)
- Maximum file size: 16 EiB
- Maximum volume size: 64 ZiB