Hard Drive Name For Mac

Posted on 15-09-2021 by admin

'Format', a word which is connected with 'all data clear' and which is different from what it is called so on Windows, has another name on Mac, 'erase'. Of course, there are different occasions where people want to get their external hard drives erased.

What Should I Name My Mac Hard Drive
Hard Drive Name For Mac Computer
Apple Mac Hard Drive
Hard Drive Name For Mac Air
Hard Drive Name For Macbook Pro

To find your best external hard drive for Mac, you’ll want to decide how quickly you want to save and retrieve data. Consider how you’ll be saving and transferring files, such as photos, videos, files from tablets, files from PC laptops, or photos from top-rated cell phones.Drive speed is measured in revolutions per minute (rpm), based on how fast the drive can spin. I ordered this 500GB hard drive from Brand Name Manufacture for only $43 (which is actually an upgrade from my original 250GB one) and although I chose 3-5 day. Fantom Drives 8TB External Hard Drive - Super Fast 7200RPM USB 3.0 - Black Aluminum External Hard Drive for Mac, PC, Xbox One and PS4 - by Fantom Drives (GF3B8000UP) 4.4 out of 5.

When there are bad sectors which don't store the data of bootstrap procedure, but of some important private files, people expect for formatting and backing up to make these files accessible again; when people's hard disks can no longer write in further, they expect for erasing disk to pave way for new items to write; when there are file system errors in people's hard disks resulting from frequent hot swapping, they expect for formatting to give rebirth to these dying disks and make them in use again.

Then how to format a external hard drive on Mac? Here are two methods for those people who urgently need to erase a external hard drive.

Part 1: Two methods to format external hard drive on Mac

Method I: Format an external hard drive through 'Disk Utility' (newbie friendly)

Step 1: Connect the external hard drive with your Mac, and the computer will mount your external hard drive. Click here when external hard drive does't mount on Mac.

Step 2: Launchpad → Other → Disk Utility, and click the Disk Utility.

Step 3: Choose your target external hard drive or volume, click Erase on the top. If you find there's something wrong to read your external hard drive, then you can turn to external hard drive does't show up in Disk Utility for help.

Step 4: Edit the disk name, select a format and a scheme.

There are 10 formats (file systems) you can select in macOS 10.13 or above:

And 3 kinds of Scheme you can choose:

What Should I Name My Mac Hard Drive

• GUID Partition Map: for all Intel-based Mac computers.

• Master Boot Record: for Windows partitions that will be formatted as MS-DOS (FAT) or ExFAT.

• Apple Partition Map: for compatibility with old PowerPC-based Mac computers.

Step 4: Click Erase to format your target disk.

Note: As for our example to erase a whole external hard drive, the original physical volume 'X' and 'Y' will have been deleted and a new volume 'Untitled' will have been established. At that time, there will be an icon of your new-established volume on the desktop.

Step 5: Click Done, and congratulations that you have finished all the steps.

Steps to format a volume are 99% the same as that of a external hard drive.

The most distinguishing difference of formatting between a volume and a external hard drive is that: if a external hard drive gets formatted, then all the volumes inside the external hard drive, which means all the data, will be deleted. Compared with that, if a volume gets formatted, only the one that gets formatted will be deleted, and that's to say, only the data of the formatted volume will be deleted.

Method II: Format an external hard drive through 'Terminal'

Step 1: Launchpad → Other → Terminal, and click Terminal.

Step 2: Input 'diskutil list', press Enter to list out all your disks.

Step 3: Input the 'erase' command: diskutil erasedisk + new file system + new disk name + identifier.

For example: to format the whole disk 2 to hfs+, then the operating command is:

To format a single volume to hfs+, like disk2s1, then the operating command is:

Note:

1. There's no limitation of uppercase or lower case.

2. HFS+ can be replaced by other file system formats, and here provide some references like APFS, JHFS+, FAT32 and ExFAT.

3. 'TD' is the name that I give to the new disk and it can be replaced by any word you like.

4. 'disk 2' is the IDENTIFIER, or rather, the target disk that I want to format.

Well done! Finished erasing on disk2! Now I believe you have master another method to format your external hard drive. Take a try!

Well, if you find that you can't format your disk due to the loss of some fatal meta files, you are bound to stop to recover your data and the iBoysoft Data Recovery can help you find the lost meta files.

Part 2: Understand external hard drive, container, volume and partition on Mac

If you newly switch from Windows PC to Mac, you may get confused with external hard drive, partition, container, and volume in Disk Utility. Here are the differences.

External hard drive: external hard drive is the hardware component like HDD and SSD that you used to store the data. In Mac Disk Utility, it shows in the first line of the whole disk directory (e.g. disk2).

Partition: different from Windows, the partition is more like an operation to divide the entire, large, uncultivated, lonely, and original disk space. When you partition your external hard drive, the partition map is created when the external hard drive is erased and the partition map defines how and what the partitions should be. But on Mac, a partition can't be in effect unless it has been activated, i.e. being formatted with a file system. A partition with a file system will be called a volume on Mac.

Container: Only the APFS has the Container where volumes share space with each other, which meanwhile implies that if one of the volumes is up to the entire partition capacity, there will be no space left for the other volumes to use in this partition. The Container is a special kind of partition on mac.

Volume: on Mac, any partition that is formatted with a file system before storing data is called a volume (e.g. disk2s1). Any available partition can divide its capacity into numerous volumes in a very easy-going way on mac while their names are editable. For an APFS external hard drive, APFS volume is a third-level unit of the storage device.

Ending

Thanks for reading! Follow us and we will show you more useful information about data recovery. Finally, nobody knows data recovery better than us!

Summary :

Backup is very important for computer usage since your business data or personal data may be lost suddenly from a computer. Data loss is a common and eternal topic on the internet. Well, backup is the most direct and effective way to prevent data loss and avoid unnecessary problems caused by it. This page on MiniTool will show you how to backup Mac to external hard drive in 5 ways.

Backup, also called data backup, is actually a copy of computer data. It is saved elsewhere on computer or external device so that it can be used to restore the original data when they are missing or corrupted. Backup is a simple and the most effective way to prevent important data loss.

How to backup Mac to external hard drive is asked frequently when users have valuable data stored on Mac. Why backup to external hard drive, not internal hard drive? There are mainly 3 reasons:

The backup should be made regularly and it will occupy much disk space.
The internal hard drive, especially the old ones, can get full easily.
It’s easier to access an external drive: the external drive can be accessed from any devices while you can’t access the internal drive if your Mac is crashed/dead.

Please read the following ways carefully to know how to backup Mac yourself (these ways work for how to backup MacBook to external hard drive, how to backup iMac to external hard drive, etc.).

Tip: Please don’t waste any time hesitating; just get a powerful data recovery tool for Mac and use it to restore the lost data ASAP!

How to Backup Mac (Using Time Machine)

Microsoft provides different ways to help Windows users backup computer to external hard drive: System Restore and File History. Likewise, Apple also offers a built-in tool to help people backup Mac to external drive: it's called Time Machine.

Back Up your Mac with Time Machine

How to backup a Mac: 4 steps.

Step 1: connect an external hard drive.

Please prepare an external disk with enough capacity and connect it to your Mac through USB, FireWire, or Thunderbolt.

Please don’t get anxious when your hard drive not showing up Mac; there are several solutions to get Mac to recognize an external hard drive.

Step 2: open Time Machine and select disk.

Click Apple menu -> select System Preferences -> click Time Machine.
Click on the Select Backup Disk button (it's also named Select Disk in some systems).
Select the external disk you connected as the backup disk from the list.
You can check Encrypt backups to secure your backup.
You can also click on the Options button to decide which data to backup.

Step 3: erase disk or stop backing up to the previous disk.

If the disk you selected to back up data is not formatted by Time Machine, you should click Erase in the prompt window to confirm.
If you have used another disk for backup before, you’ll be asked Do you want to stop backing up to the previous disk and use the new disk, or back up to both. Please make your choice.

Step 4: wait for the backing up process.

The backup process will be started and processed automatically, so you should just wait until it’s completed. After that, you can remove the external drive from your Mac.

How to Backup Mac to External Hard Drive without Time Machine (4 Ways)

What if you don’t want to backup Mac to external hard drive using Time Machine? luckily, you have many other choices.

Backup Mac to External Hard Drive Using Disk Utility

How to backup Mac to external hard drive using Disk Utility:

Connect the external hard drive to Mac.
Open Disk Utilities from Finder -> Applications.
Select the external disk.
Click Erase and confirm your action.
Confirm the Name, Format, and Scheme.
Click Erase and wait.
Click Done.
Open the external hard drive and create a new folder named Backup or anything else.
Navigate to the file/folder you want to backup, copy it manually.
Go to the Backup folder and paste the file/folder.

Backup Mac to iCloud

iCloud is a good choice to keep a backup of your data. It allows you to back up data on many different devices like Mac, iPhone or iPad. Then, you can access the backup data anywhere you want.

How can you backup your Mac to iCloud:

Some users would like to know how to backup Mac to iCloud, in addition to backing up Mac with Time Machine (the built-in backup software).

Backup Mac Using Cloud Storage Services

Online backup service is also a good choice for backing up your MacBook. How to back up MacBook? There are many choices for you.