The view button is in the upper left side of the Disk Utility window. If you don’t see two entries listed in the sidebar, change the view in disk utility to show both the drive and the volume. MacOS starting version 10.13-Make sure to select the disk and not just the volume. A FAT32 partition can reach up to 32GB when formatted on a Windows PC. However, FAT32 is a legacy file system designed for low capacity hard drives and it is not recommended for modern hard drives or operating systems. exFAT is not a journaled file system which means it can be more susceptible to data corruption when errors occur or the drive is not disconnected properly from the computer.įAT32-Compatible with Mac and Windows.

APFS is only supported on macOS 10.13 or later.ĮxFAT-Compatible with Mac and Windows.

Format LaCie USB 3.0 Drive to HFS+ if you intend to use it with Time Machine.

You cannot use an APFS-formatted disk as your Time Machine backup drive.

While you can format your hard disk drive (HDD) in APFS, performance may be degraded when files on the drive are routinely subjected to extensive editing (for example, large-scale image, video, audio, and music editing). This is the best format if you intend to use LaCie USB 3.0 Drive with Time Machine.ĪPFS (Apple File System)-An Apple file system optimized for solid state drives (SSDs) and flash-based storage systems. Windows cannot natively read or write to HFS+ (journaled) volumes. Mac OS Extended (HFS+)-The native hard drive file system for macOS. macOS can read NTFS volumes but cannot natively write to them.

Use Disk Management (Windows) or Disk Utility (Mac) to format your drive in non-native formats. Format your drive for optimal performance with just a few simple clicks.

Quick format flash drive mac