Cannot resize external SSD partition

[BigDK]

Hi, I'm hoping someone can help with my partition issue here. I'm on a late 2014 Mac Mini and recently upgraded to OSX 10.11 (so new Disk Utility GUI).

I have a Samsung 850 EVO SSD in an external enclosure (USB 3) and initialized the entire drive (1 TB) in a single partition with Disk Utility with an exFAT file system and have used the drive just fine. I'm now wanting to create a second partition on it, but cannot seem to change any partition aspects (add/resize) with Disk Utility or Paragon Hard Disk Manager. Partition options simply greyed out in DU. When I originally viewed the drive in Paragon DM, it said partition table was GPT + MBR, so I converted it to only GPT... still cannot get any resizing to work. I've also run the first aid on both the external enclosure and mounted drive within with no issues reported.

Any ideas? Thanks

 

[Fishrrman]

Unless you have some compelling reason why the external drive needs to be exFAT, I would suggest that you RE-initialize it to HFS+ with journaling enabled.

Then, partition as needed...

 

[Weaselboy]

and initialized the entire drive (1 TB) in a single partition with Disk Utility with an exFAT file system

There is your problem... you cannot resize an exFAT partition. If you need to part of the drive in exFAT you will need to remove the exFAT volume then add it back in the size you want.

 

[BigDK]

Thanks for the replies. I figured it might have to do with the exFAT format. I originally chose exFAT as I boot camp W10 along with my OSX so I wanted a file system both can easily write to, but learned today that aperture libraries don't work on exFAT. Now I'm wishing I simply chose to go 50% exFAT/NTFS and 50% HFS+... if I wipe the entire thing and start new, can I set it up that way? If so, does it mean I can never resize exFAT once it's first created (if say, I made it 50%, it's always 50%)?

Thanks again

 

[Weaselboy]

Thanks for the replies. I figured it might have to do with the exFAT format. I originally chose exFAT as I boot camp W10 along with my OSX so I wanted a file system both can easily write to, but learned today that aperture libraries don't work on exFAT. Now I'm wishing I simply chose to go 50% exFAT/NTFS and 50% HFS+... if I wipe the entire thing and start new, can I set it up that way? If so, does it mean I can never resize exFAT once it's first created (if say, I made it 50%, it's always 50%)?

Thanks again

Sure... you can start over and set it up like that, but you will never be able to resize the 50% exFAT after you set it up.