Meet the stylish external laptop drive for Mac computers. Backup Plus Slim for Mac makes it easy to store and access 1TB of content on the go, and yes—it works with Windows computers too! Featuring a minimalist metal enclosure, this portable external hard drive is fast and easy to use. Aug 16, 2019 If you buy a new external hard drive, you may notice that working between Mac and PC is an often difficult - but it doesn't need to be. We'll show you everything you need to know about the. The Seagate Backup Plus Slim is the most reliable hard drive you can carry around with you at all times. It is formatted for both Mac and Windows right out of the box, and its easy-to-use software can automatically do backups for you as often or as little as you want. Seagate also throws in a one-year complimentary subscription to Mylio Create. Some Seagate external drives, such as the FreeAgent Go for Mac and FreeAgent Desk for Mac, come formatted in MacOS Extended format, which is supported by Mac OS 8.1 and later. Others, which come formatted in NTFS, need to be reformatted in MacOS before you attempt to store data on the drive. See Document ID: 207851 for instructions. When you format your external hard drive, it should be formatted for Mac OS Extended. Nov 20, 2017 If you read my previous post about how to format an external hard drive, you know that I bought a 2TB Seagate Expansion external drive and managed to create two partitions on the disk — one for Mac backup purposes, and the other for personal use. In this article, I’m going to show you how to backup your Mac data to an external drive.You should backup your Mac on a regular basis.
So, you just bought an external hard drive or a portable SSD and wanted to use it on your Mac. But somehow, macOS doesn’t allow you to write data to the drive.
That’s all because it’s been initialized with Windows NT File System (NTFS), which is primarily for PCs. Apple Mac machines support a different file system.
In this post, I’m going to show you how to format your external drive for a Mac compatible file system i.e. Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Just follow this easy step-by-step guide and you’re all set.
Seagate External Hard Drive For Mac
Hot keys for macbook. Important note: If you have useful files stored on the external drive, be sure to copy or transfer them to another safe place prior to formatting. The operation will erase all data and your files will be gone for good. You could use a recovery program like Data Rescue to retrieve them, but the odds of recovery vary.
Pro tip: If your external drive has a large volume, like mine – a 2TB Seagate Expansion. I highly recommend you also create multiple partitions. I’ll also show you how to do that below.
Most External Hard Drives Are Initiated with NTFS
During the last several years, I’ve used several removable drives, including a 500GB WD My Passport, 32GB Lexar flash drive, and a few others.
Three weeks ago, I bought a brand new 2TB Seagate Expansion to backup my MacBook Pro before I updated to the latest macOS, 10.13 High Sierra (also see those High Sierra issues I encountered).
When I connected the Seagate to my Mac, the drive icon showed up like this.
When I opened it, the default content was all there. Since I wanted to use it on Mac, I clicked the blue logo with the text “Start_Here-Mac”.
It brought me to a webpage on Seagate’s site, where it clearly indicated the drive was initially set up to work with a Windows PC. If I wanted to use it with Mac OS or Time Machine backup (which is my intent), I’ll need to format the drive for my Mac.
I then right-clicked the external drive icon on Mac desktop > Get Info. It showed this format:
Format: Windows NT File System (NTFS)
What is NTFS? I’m not going to explain here; you can read more on Wikipedia. The problem is that on macOS, you can’t work with files saved on an NTFS drive unless you use a paid app Paragon NTFS for Mac.
How to Format an External Drive to Work with Mac (from NTFS to Mac OS Extended)?
Note: The tutorial and screenshots below are based on macOS Sierra 10.12.5. They might be different if your Mac has a different version.
![Seagate External Harddrive For Mac Seagate External Harddrive For Mac](/uploads/1/3/3/9/133936819/275584584.jpg)
Step 1: Open Disk Utility.
The quickest way to do this is a simple Spotlight search (click the search icon on the upper right corner), or go to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.
Step 2: Highlight your external drive and click “Erase”.
Make sure your drive is connected. It should show up on the left panel under “External”. Select that disk and click the “Erase” button, the one highlighted in red in the screenshot below.
Step 3: Select “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)” in Format.
A new window will pop up asking which file system you’d like to format the external drive to. By default, it’s the Windows NT File System (NTFS). Select the one shown below.
![Seagate External Harddrive For Mac Seagate External Harddrive For Mac](/uploads/1/3/3/9/133936819/155723532.jpg)
Pro tip: If you want to use the external drive for both Mac and PC, you can also select “ExFAT”. Learn more about the differences between these file systems from this thread.
By the way, you can also rename your external drive.
Step 4: Wait until the erasing process is complete.
For me, it took less than a minute to format my 2TB Seagate Expansion.
You can also check to see if the format was successful. Right-click on the icon for your external drive on Mac desktop, then select “Get Info”. Under “Format”, you should see text like this:
Congratulations! Now your external drive has been formatted to be fully compatible with Apple MacOS, and you can edit, read, and write files to it as you want.
How to Partition an External Hard Drive on Mac
If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive (in fact, you should for better file organization), here’s a step-by-step guide:
Microsoft remote desktop download. Step 1: Highlight your drive and click “Partition” in Disk Utility.
Open the Disk Utility app and highlight your external hard drive. Make sure you select the disk icon right under “External”. If you select the one below it, the Partition option will be greyed out and become unclickable.
Step 2: Add partitions and allocate volume for each one. Most reliable external hard drive for mac.
After clicking “Partition”, you’ll see this window. Located on the left is a big blue circle with the name of your external drive together with its volume size. What you need to do next is click the add “+” button to increase the number of partitions on your external disk. Then allocate the desired volume to each partition. You can do that by clicking the small white circle and dragging it around.
After that, you can rename each partition and define a file system for it.
https://padstree136.weebly.com/free-resume-templates-for-mac.html. Step 3: Confirm your operation.
Once you hit “Apply”, a new window pops up asking for your confirmation. Take a few seconds to read the text description to make sure it reflects what you intend to do, then click the “Partition” button to continue.
Step 4: Wait until it says “Operation successful.”
To check whether the operation is really successful, go to your Mac desktop. You should see multiple disk icons show up. I chose to create two partitions on my Seagate Expansion — one for backup, the other for personal use. You can find more info in this post: How to Backup Mac to an External Hard Drive.
That wraps up this tutorial article. I hope you find it helpful. As always, let me know if you have any issues during the formatting or partitioning process.
Need help with your computer? At Boxaid remote computer repair we can help you with Windows or Mac problems such as slow performance or virus removal service at an affordable price.
Mac computers are easy to use, for the most part. But sometimes, things happen that can really turn that ease of use into “What do I do with this?” One of those things is when you unplug a USB storage device without ejecting it properly. Usually, you just get a quick warning message and things return to normal.
But sometimes, something worse will happen. Instead, you’ll now have a read-only external hard drive that won’t allow you to do backups. If you’re having trouble copying a file to your external hard drive, right click on it in your Finder and select Get Info. If you see this at the very bottom under Sharing & Permissions, then you have a problem.
In some cases, you don’t even need to eject it improperly for this to happen – it just happens from one usage to the next. It can also happen if you are switching between using the drive on a Mac and a Windows PC. No matter the reason why, this can be a very frustrating thing to deal with, especially if you have just backed up a large amount of files onto your new drive.
Troubleshooting a Read-Only Seagate External Hard Drive
Since Seagate is one of the most popular brands you will find when searching for a backup external hard drive for a Mac on sites like Amazon, we’ll troubleshoot this problem based on one of their hard drives.
The first thing you will run across when you search for a read-only external hard drive on a Mac is the suggestion to reformat it. That’s the suggestion the Seagate forum support admin offers. Of course, if you have files on it already, that really isn’t an option, as you would lose all of those files.
Another suggestion you’ll find is to create a second backup of your read-only external hard drive and then reformat the read-only had drive. Again, this is an irritating prospect as you have paid for one hard drive, and you don’t want to pay for a second just because the first one is having problems. And it’s another suggestion by the Seagate forum admins.
After reading a lot of forum entries, you’ll find the solution to this issues is actually quite simple – you just need to download and install a NTFS driver for Mac OS from Seagate.
Once installed (and you’ve restarted your Mac), your external drive should be back to normal. You can check by either trying to copy a file to it or right clicking on it in your Finder, selecting Get Info, and making sure the permissions have changed to read and write.
If this isn’t the case, you may need to keep searching for solutions. But most of the time, this will solve the problem and allow you to use your external hard drive freely between your Mac and PC.
Preventing the Read Only Hard Drive Issue
One way to prevent this issue from happening with your Seagate (or other) external hard drive is to set up your external hard drive as specified in the directions that come with the product. While almost every piece of hardware is now plug-n-play, some do need those extra configurations and software to get the best performance.
Troubleshooting a Read-Only External Hard Drive Other Than Seagate
Seagate External Hard Drive For Macbook
Experiencing the read-only problem with another company’s external hard drive on a Mac, or not able to fix it with the driver suggested above? You can try searching on Google for others who have solved this problem, although many will simply suggest that you reformat the drive or get a second backup and then reformat your hard drive. Some companies will, like Seagate, have specific drivers that you can install to help your Mac identify your external hard drive as read and write again.