You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Is there an external hard drive that comes from the factory already formatted for use with High Sierra 10.13.6?

Is there an external hard drive for Photos backup that comes from the factory already formatted for use with High Sierra 10.13.6.? I would prefer to just connect it and use it rather that format it myself. 5 TB would be nice.


iMac 21.5″, macOS 10.13

Posted on Aug 12, 2020 9:29 AM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Aug 12, 2020 10:21 AM

If the drive is formatted for FAT 32 then you would have to reformat the entire drive to HSF+ or OS X Extended (journaled). That will erase any software that might have been included with the disk


I prefer to reformat new drives no matter what so I know it's done right.

7 replies

Aug 12, 2020 9:58 AM in response to SlideMan23

There are a few that come pre-formatted for Mac as HFS+, but finding them is not always straightforward.


For example: https://www.seagate.com/manuals/backupplushub/optional-formatting-partitioning/


However I've only ever seen the Windows formatted version.


There are others that claim to be Mac formatted directly but its hard to be 100% certain. For instance: https://www.amazon.com/Fantom-GF5000QU3-External-Firewire-Aluminum/dp/B00YUU3XJG?th=1


Reviews and questions claim some were already formatted as HFS+ out of the box, other say it came as NTFS for Windows. So you take your chances.


Formatting is not difficult though. Its juts a matter of opening Disk Utility, selecting the drive, setting the format (HSF+ or APFS), and hitting the format button.

Is there an external hard drive that comes from the factory already formatted for use with High Sierra 10.13.6?

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.