Formating Options For External Drives.

[jcf20010]

My iMac is running OSX 10.14.6.
I just added a 500GB Samsung T7 USB SSD for extra storage and when I tried to add it to be included in my Time Machine backups I see a restricted list of formatting options.

When I check the formatting options on the Time Machine volume, which is a 500GB Toshiba USB HD, I see this:

When I check the formatting options on the 500GB Samsung USB SSD I see this:

Why do two different external USB storage devices with the same capacity have different formatting options?

Thanks.

 

[Fishrrman]

Whether it's an SSD or an HDD...
For EXTERNAL usage, I'd recommend HFS+ (Mac OS extended with journaling enabled, GUID partition format).

The only exception is an external cloned boot drive created by CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper -- then (for Mojave and later) it has to be APFS.
Special note: it's possible to boot and run Mojave from HFS+, but the software update will no longer function properly afterwards...

 

[Taz Mangus]

Whether it's an SSD or an HDD...
For EXTERNAL usage, I'd recommend HFS+ (Mac OS extended with journaling enabled, GUID partition format).

The only exception is an external cloned boot drive created by CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper -- then (for Mojave and later) it has to be APFS.
Special note: it's possible to boot and run Mojave from HFS+, but the software update will no longer function properly afterwards...

The OP was asking why the available format options are not the same for both external drives.

 

[Ritsuka]

Because your external disk partition format is not GUID. You have no initialise the whole disk and not only the single partition to get all the available formats.

 

[Taz Mangus]

As @Ritsuka Pointed out you need erase the physical device not the Volume. Make sure to select View->All Devives, select the top level physical device to erase.

 

[jcf20010]

As @Ritsuka Pointed out you need erase the physical device not the Volume. Make sure to select View->All Devives, select the top level physical device to erase.

That's why I didn't initially see it.
Thanks.

 

[jcf20010]

Because your external disk partition format is not GUID. You have no initialise the whole disk and not only the single partition to get all the available formats.

Initially I did not see that option now that I do I also see all the other options.

Now to get this case sensitivity confusion figured out.

Thanks.

 

[joevt]

Now to get this case sensitivity confusion figured out.

Macs usually use case insensitive file system. You can change the case of characters in a file path argument of a command in Terminal.app, but not if the path includes wild card characters.

Sometimes I see Linux source code containing two files in a directory with the same name but with different case. Annoying. In that case you might want a case sensitive partition for coding.

 

[Taz Mangus]

Now to get this case sensitivity confusion figured out.

This thread gives a good explanation on case-sensitive file system format.

For APFS, any reason not to use case-sensitivity?

For APFS, any reason not to use case-sensitivity? Just wondering, because I just learned that the APFS default is case insensitive. However, my Synology NAS is case sensitive.

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