formatting issues on external drives

[jshire]

I have some questions about formatting of external drives for use with Macbook pro's. I've always used OS Journaled but Apple now suggest AFPS for SSD drives. However I want to keep using OS-J as I do have older macs also, which can't read AFPS.

I'm just formatting a new SSD drive & have noticed that the option to use the version of Mac OS Journaled that is encrypted anymore, so there doesn't seem to be a way to password protect a new drive using that format now. If so I have no idea why Apple think it's ok to remove that option. Anyone know if it's still possible to password protect external drives now, without having to use AFPS?


ps. well, this is turning into a bit of a farce. After following some tips on encrypting external drives on the main Apple website it formatted the drive to AFPS without me selecting that option. When I then tried to erase it so it could be formatted in Mac OS Journaled that option isn't there at all now, only AFPS. Is there anyway to get the external SSD back to a point where I can format it to the format I want?

Thanks.

 

[Bigwaff]

I'm just formatting a new SSD drive & have noticed that the option to use the version of Mac OS Journaled that is encrypted anymore, so there doesn't seem to be a way to password protect a new drive using that format now. If so I have no idea why Apple think it's ok to remove that option. Anyone know if it's still possible to password protect external drives now, without having to use AFPS?

Can't speak to Apple's rationale but I believe that option was removed in Big Sur so it's been close to half a decade. However, I believe macOS supports mounting HFS+ encrypted volumes, just not creating new ones. I guess you'll have to use one of your older Macs to create an encrypted HFS+ volume.

 

[MarkC426]

I have some questions about formatting of external drives for use with Macbook pro's. I've always used OS Journaled but Apple now suggest AFPS for SSD drives. However I want to keep using OS-J as I do have older macs also, which can't read AFPS.

I'm just formatting a new SSD drive & have noticed that the option to use the version of Mac OS Journaled that is encrypted anymore, so there doesn't seem to be a way to password protect a new drive using that format now. If so I have no idea why Apple think it's ok to remove that option. Anyone know if it's still possible to password protect external drives now, without having to use AFPS?


ps. well, this is turning into a bit of a farce. After following some tips on encrypting external drives on the main Apple website it formatted the drive to AFPS without me selecting that option. When I then tried to erase it so it could be formatted in Mac OS Journaled that option isn't there at all now, only AFPS. Is there anyway to get the external SSD back to a point where I can format it to the format I want?

Thanks.

Why not format it with one of your ‘older’ Macs….?

File system formats available in Disk Utility on Mac

In Disk Utility on your Mac, format disks or volumes using Apple File System (APFS), Mac OS Extended, MS-DOS (FAT) and ExFAT.

support.apple.com

Plus it should work in HFS+ from your latest Mac… 🤔