FORMAT EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE MAC EXFAT MAC OS X

HFS+ is a file system that is significant for making full use of a storage device and how data is retrieved and saved. Startup File: For booting of non-Mac computers What is HFS+ used for? It stores the first eight extents of each fork.Īttributes File: B-tree with information of additional fork.Įxtents Overflow File: B-tree for the rest of the extents that catalog file doesn't store. Volume Header: Store information about the volume, such as creation time and the number of files.Īllocation File (bitmap): Track if an allocation block is used or free.Ĭatalog File: B-tree that describes the folder and file structure on a volume. HFS+ uses six main interrelated structures to manage data on the volume. Now you can see the file system listed under your drive name on the pop-up window. Click View > Show All Devices, then select your drive from the left panel. On your Mac, click Launchpad > Other folder, then choose the Disk Utility app. To find out if your file system is HFS+ or APFS: You can’t read or write to a Mac-formatted external hard drive on a Windows PC because your Mac drive is usually formatted with HFS+ or APFS, which is incompatible with Windows.

All Mac operating systems since Mac OS 8.1 (read & write support).

Nevertheless, HFS+ remains a popular Mac disk format due to its compatibility. When Apple launched macOS High Sierra in 2017, they replaced HFS+ with APFS (Apple File System), a disk format optimized for SSDs. You will often see it on Mac named Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

FORMAT EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE MAC EXFAT MAC OS X

HFS+, also referred to as HFS plus, Mac OS Extended or HFS Extended, has been the primary journaling file system of the Mac OS X series since the release of Mac OS 8.1 in 1998. As the default file system on Mac before APFS, you may see or heard of HFS+ often but wonder what it is and how it differs from other file systems like exFAT and NTFS.

Format external hard drive mac exfat