May 04, 2018 Disk Utility only supports partition creation and formatting for Mac OS Extended (Journaled), exFAT, MS-DOS (FAT) and since MacOS High Sierra (10.13), it supports APFS. If you are a Linux user or operating systems other than macOS, you probably use another tool.
How much do you know about APFS vs Mac OS Extended? Which Mac file system should you choose? How to format hard drive for Mac? If you have similar questions on your mind, please read this page carefully to find answers; the main differences between APFS and Mac OS Extended file system and several ways to format a hard drive (internal/external) on Mac will be introduced.
With macOS High Sierra (10.13) and greater, Apple introduced a new format, APFS (in addition to format HFS / Mac OS Extended). Our applications are generally compatible with mac OS 10.13 and +. See the compatibility page. The APFS format is not a problem for all our applications not dependent on the format of the disk. Format your APFS drive back to MacOS Extended Journaled(HFS+), FAT or ExFAT - macOS Secret Trick 2019. A common problem people facing is inability to refor.
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Mac (formerly known as Macintosh) refers to the personal computers that are designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Inc. MacOS is one of the most popular operating systems in the world; it’s the main competitor of Windows.
Common Mac file system includes:
APFS (Apple File System): the default file system used in macOS 10.13 and later versions.
Mac OS Extended: the file system used in macOS 10.12 and earlier versions.
FAT (MS-DOS) and exFAT: the system systems that are supported by both Mac & Windows.
The following content first discusses on APFS vs Mac OS Extended; after that, it will tell you how to format a hard drive for Mac in several different ways.
Tip: Do you know MiniTool Solution? It is a company devoting itself to developing software for different purposes (data recovery, disk management, system backup, etc.) and keeping them updated regularly.
Part 1: Introduction to APFS and Mac OS Extended
In this part, I’ll first introduce APFS and Mac OS extended to you. Then, I’ll compare these two file systems used on Mac for you in brief. You may ask what are the differences between APFS and Mac OS Extended, right?
APFS vs Mac OS Extended
APFS refers to Apple File System, which is a proprietary file system used by Mac devices running macOS 10.13 or later. Mac OS Extended is a journaling file system used by macOS 10.12 or earlier. APFS is best for solid state and flash drives while Mac OS Extended is best for mechanical drives, or drives used on older macOS.
What Is APFS Format
APFS (the full name is Apple File System) is a proprietary file system released by Apple Inc. It can be used on different devices running macOS High Sierra (10.13) and later, iOS 10.3 and later, all versions of iPadOS, watchOS 3.2 and later, or tvOS 10.2 and later. APFS is a new file system which was originally designed by Mac to fix core problems of Mac OS Extended.
What Is Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Mac OS Extended, also known as HFS+, HFS Plus or HFS Extended, is actually a journaling file system released by Apple Inc. It was released in 1998 to replace HFS (Hierarchical File System, also known as Mac OS Standard or HFS Standard), which is the previous primary file system in Apple computers. Two main advantages of HFS+ when compare to HFS are: a. it gives support to much larger files; b. it uses Unicode for naming items.
Part 2: Which Is Better, APFS or Mac OS Extended
APFS vs HFS+ vs HFS:
APFS file system was announced in June 2016 to replace HFS+ (also known as HFS Plus or Mac OS Extended); the latter was used on all Mac computers as the primary file system since 1998 to replace the previous HFS.
Choose APFS for SSDs & Flash Storage Devices
When compared to Mac OS extended, APFS has been optimized a lot in terms of encryption, so it’s more suitable for flash and solid-state drive storage. APFS becomes the default file system for both for SSDs (Solid State Drives) and flash drives.
In 2016, APFS was first released by Apple to replace Mac OS Extended (the previous default file system on Mac); it carries all sorts of benefits you can found in Mac OS Extended.
A partial specification for APFS was published by Apple in September 2018 to allow the read-only access to APFS drive on even unencrypted and non-Fusion storage devices.
But don’t worry, you can still use the APFS on mechanical and hybrid drives.
To gain quality but free USB data recovery service, you should use MiniTool Power Data Recovery Free Edition; this post tells you how to recover USB data.
There are two main highlights in APFS.
1st: fast speed. Copying and pasting a folder on APFS drive can be finished in an instant since the file system points to basically the same data twice.
There are huge improvements in metadata so that many actions can be performed quickly; for example, confirming how much space the target file/folder takes up on an APFS drive.
The reliability is also improved a lot. Users don't encounter corrupted files as often as they used to.
2nd: reverse compatibility. If you are running 2016’s macOS Sierra or the later versions of macOS, congratulations, you have both read and write access to APFS, HFS +, and HFS file system. However, for users who run an older Mac (or a Windows operating system), they are not allowed to write to APFS-formatted drives.
Pros & Cons of APFS
Main advantages of APFS:
It’s able to create point-in-time snapshots for users.
APFS allows users to encrypt the full disk by using a single or multi-key so as to enhance the security.
The checksums are used to ensure the integrity of metadata.
It creates new records, instead of overwriting the existing ones, in order to avoid metadata corruption; the records may be corrupted because of system crash or other reasons.
The storage management of APFS is more efficient than HFS+, resulting in helping users get additional free space.
Users don't need to write changes twice by choosing APFS over HFS+; this will increase the system performance on some devices.
The clones or multiple copies of the same file are allowed; it will only store the changes as deltas. This helps to reduce storage space greatly when users copy files, make revisions, or do other things.
The APFS drive is generally more stable and reliable than the previous HFS+ or HFS drive.
Main disadvantages of APFS:
Compression is not allowed on an APFS drive.
It gives no support to the Fusion drives.
The NVRAM (Non-volatile Random-access Memory) can’t be used even for data storage.
The Checksums used are only available for ensuring integrity of metadata (that of user data can’t be guaranteed).
You can only access the encrypted volumes from another other computer which runs macOS High Sierra.
The biggest disadvantage of all seems to be: APFS wasn’t compatible with Time Machine for a long time in the past. Users of older Mac versions are told to make backups on Mac OS Extended drive unless they use a third-party backup tool rather than the built-in Time Machine.
Note: If you’re running the new macOS like the Big Sur, you'd better choose APFS or APFS encrypted disks for Time Machine backup. You’ll be asked to erase and reformat the disk if you use a new one that’s not formatted as APFS to backup. Well, the system won’t ask you to erase and reformat if you choose to back up on a Mac OS Extended disk that contains an existing Time Machine backup.
Choose Mac OS Extended Journaled for Mechanical Hard Disks
Mac OS Extended (HFS+) is the default file system for all Macs from 1998 to 2017, until the new APFS replace it. Till now, it’s still the default file system for both mechanical and hybrid hard drives. You should keep it unchanged while you install the macOS or format external hard drive Mac. The HFS+ is a better choice than APFS on even current mechanical and hybrid hard drives.
Besides, you should definitely choose Mac OS Extended when you reformat external hard drive Mac considering that it may be used on older Macs running El Capitan or earlier versions of macOS. As you know, the new APFS file system is not compatible with these old macOS versions.
Pros & Cons of HFS+
Main advantages of HFS+:
It gives support to the Fusion drives (which can’t be supported by APFS).
It gives support to all versions of Mac OS X and macOS.
You can encrypt volumes and then access them from any version of Mac OS X and macOS.
Main disadvantages of HFS+:
There’s no point-in-time snapshot for users.
The nanosecond standard is not used for Timestamps.
The native file support for other file systems is too limited.
The support to Mac OS Extended will be stopped on February 6, 2040.
No checksum is used for metadata integrity or user data integrity.
You can’t have concurrent access to the file system by a process.
Note: It seems that Apple won’t spend much time in improving the HFS+ in the future. The APFS will be the new and future file system for Apple devices; it’s likely that Apple will add more features to APFS and keep improving it for better security and user experience.
Please ask yourself the following questions when you choose between APFS and Mac OS Extended:
Are you formatting the internal disk or the external hard drive on your Mac?
Which macOS are you running? Do you prepare to install macOS High Sierra or later?
Is the Time Machine backup or bootable installer included in your daily schedule?
Are you preparing to use the disk on another Mac or even Windows computer?
Bonus Tip: Choose exFAT for Hard Drives Used on Both Mac & Windows
Though the file system of main system drive on Mac is confined to APFS and Mac OS Extended, you can still consider exFAT (or the older FAT) when you format an external hard drive on Mac.
The most obvious benefit of using exFAT is that it can work with both Windows and macOS computers (you have both read and write access to the exFAT drive). Although there are solutions to read Mac formatted drive on Windows or read a Windows formatted drive on Mac, formatting drives to exFAT is still a convenient thing and an economical choice.
Tip: Microsoft released exFAT in 2006 to replace the older FAT32 format, providing cross-platform compatibility. Till then, the file and partition size limitations had been broken: 4GB file size limit and 2TB partition size limit.
Part 3: How to Format Hard Drive for Mac
Users shouldn’t reformat the disk that built-in Mac causally unless they have special needs and they are professional enough. So this part will focus on how to format external hard drive for Mac by using the snap-in tool: Disk Utility (it can be used to format & manage both internal and external hard drives as well as disk images).
Warning: You are strongly advised to back up at least important files on the disk before formatting it since the formatting action will damage all files saved on the target drive. Two ways to backup files easily on Mac is: copying & pasting files to another driver and using Time Machine. In addition, you can use the Restore feature to erase a drive and then replace its contents with the files from the drive you want to backup.
How to format an external hard drive for Mac? Please follow this guide.
Step 1: open Disk Utility on your Mac.
Go to the Applications -> select Utilities folder -> double click on Disk Utility.
Note: Please start up from macOS Recovery and then choose Disk Utility in the macOS Utilities window if you really want to format the startup disk or startup volume.
Step 2: choose View -> Show All Devices.
Please click on the View icon in the upper left corner of Disk Utility window. After that, please select Show All Devices from the drop-down list.
Step 3: erase/wipe the target disk.
Please connect the external hard disk in advance and make sure it’s appeared on Mac. Then, select the disk that you want to format from the left sidebar. After that, you should click on the Erase button in the right pane.
Give the disk a Name (the maximum length is 11 characters).
Select a proper file Format.
Choose a proper Scheme.
Click on the Security Options to choose how you'd like the drive to be formatted (optional).
Click on the Erase button.
Wait for the process to be finished.
Click on the blue Done button to close the window.
You can now start to use the formatted disk. Please click here to know how to format a disk for Windows computers in Disk Utility on Mac.
The file formats available for you to choose are:
APFS
APFS (Encrypted)
APFS (Case-sensitive)
APFS (Case-sensitive, Encrypted)
Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted)
Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled)
Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled, Encrypted)
MS-DOS (FAT)
ExFAT
Click here to know more about the differences between these file formats.
That’s how to reformat a disk on Mac by using Disk Utility (the steps to reformat MacBook Pro are the same). Of course, there are also many third-party tools you can download to format the disk on your Mac.
How to Recover Formatted Hard Drive on Mac
Data recovery from mac formatted external hard drive:
Download Stellar Data Recovery for Mac.
Follow the wizard to install it properly.
Launch the software right after installation.
Make sure the formatted drive is connected to your Mac.
Define the file type that you want to recover; you can select all types by enabling Recover Everything.
Click on the Next button to continue.
Choose the formatted disk/drive and click on the Scan button (enable Deep Scan to find more files).
Wait until the scan is finished.
Browse the scan results and choose what you want to recover.
Click on the Recover button and select a safe place to store the recovered data.
Extended reading:
Tip: If you have backed up the disk data by using Time Machine in advance, you can also perform Mac hard drive recovery by using this snap-in tool.
Final Thoughts
Both APFS and Mac OS Extended are popular file systems supported by Mac computers. If you don't know which one is more suitable for you, please read part 1 and part 2 carefully (the advantages & disadvantages of these two Mac file systems are included). Part 3 teaches you how to format a hard drive for Mac by using the snap-in Disk Utility; besides, it offers an easy method for recovering data from a formatted drive on Mac. Hope this can help you decide which one to choose: APFS or Mac OS Extended, and prevent your important data from getting lost.
Summary :
If you connect a drive formatted in Mac to a Windows PC, you’ll be prompted to format it before use. That is to say, you are not allowed to view anything saved on it before formatting. But the question is: if you click Format disk, your data will be ruined. This post from MiniTool will introduce several useful ways to help you with that; please read carefully.
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Can You Read Mac Drive on Windows
Many people doubt that whether they can read Mac drive on Windows. Some took action: they removed the drive from Mac and connected it to a Windows PC properly. But after connecting the Mac-formatted drive to Windows, a prompt window will pop up automatically on the screen, saying that they need to format the disk before use.
Don’t Format the Drive
You should click CancelMac mini magic mouse. instead of Format disk when seeing this prompt. Why? That is simply because the formatting action will damage your data saved on that drive. Is there any other way to read a Mac-formatted drive on Windows? Sure, it is; some effective ways used by other users will be shown to you later on this page.
What Does Formatting a Hard Drive Do
Some users said they clicked on the Format disk button by mistake when seeing the prompt window mentioned above; they were wondering if there’s any way to help them recover a formatted hard drive. Luckily, the answer is yes.
What does disk formatting mean?
Formatting a hard disk/drive refers to delete all the file & folders save on a drive and set a certain file system for it. The formatting action is performed to prepare a data storage device (including hard disk drive, solid-state drive, USB flash drive, and SD card) for initial use. Two of the most obvious results of formatting a hard disk are: deleting data and changing file system.
Besides, there are also other benefits of disk formatting:
Get more space on disk.
Solve disk problems caused by soft failure.
Improve disk/system performance greatly.
And so on.
Do you know how to improve Windows 10 performance effectively?
It’s necessary to improve Windows 10 performance effectively since various problems will occur inevitably on a system that has been used for a long time.
Recover Formatted Hard Drive
The first and the most important thing to do after formatting a hard drive is to recover precious data from hard drive. MiniTool Power Data Recovery can be a good data recovery assistant: it’s clean, safe, and professional. Please free download the trial edition to experience this data recovery tool first before you decide to buy it; after that, double click on the setup program to finish installing the software on your Windows computer, on which the Mac hard drives are formatted.
Follow this guide to recover data from Mac formatted external hard drives:
Click Start now at the end of installation to launch MiniTool Power Data Recovery. You can also open it by double clicking on the software icon.
Wait for a few seconds until the disk loading process is finished automatically.
Select Hard Disk Drive from the pane on your left hand side.
Choose the formatted Mac drive from the pane on your right hand side.
Double click on the target drive directly or click on the Scan button at the bottom right corner.
The full scan will be started at once; more and more files and folders will be found during the scan. Please make sure the Mac hard drive is always connected to your computer.
Browse the found items carefully to decide which files are needed and which are not; add a checkmark into the square box in from of all the files you want to recover. If you can’t confirm, go to view the content before recovery by clicking Preview.
Click on the Save button in the lower right corner.
Select a storage path in the pop-up window to store the files waiting to be recovered; please make sure it has enough free space left. (You shouldn’t select the original Mac-formatted drive as the storage location in order to avoid secondary damage.)
Click on the OK button in the same window to confirm your selection.
Then, wait until all the files saved on Mac hard drive have been recovered successfully to appointed place. A prompt window will show up to inform you of the recovery result.
MiniTool Power Data Recovery is also a great tool for recovering formatted SD card or broken/corrupted USB stick. The recovery steps are basically the same expect that you should select Removable Disk Drive from the left sidebar as mentioned in step 3.
After the data recovery process has been completed, you may transfer back the recovered files to the formatted disk as long as you can confirm that you’ve got back all the files you need.
Windows 10 Read Mac Drive
Can a Mac external drive be read on a PC?
A lot of people are wondering whether they can read Mac drive on Windows 10 with freeware. In fact, there is both free and paid software to help people read Mac drive on PC easily, without formatting the disk. I’ll introduce some of the useful software to you one by one in this part; please choose a proper hard drive reader yourself.
Note: Choice 1 ~ 3 is suitable for reading HFS & HFS+; choice 4 ~ 5 is used to read APFS on Windows.
Choice 1: HFSExplorer
HFSExplorer is completely free; it’s a basic application designed to help users read Mac-formatted hard disks and disk images. HFSExplorer gives support to various file systems: HFS (the Standard file system on Mac), HFS+ (the Extended file system on Mac OS), HFSX (the Extended Mac OS file system with case sensitive file names), etc.
What does HFSExplorer allow you to do?
Browse volumes on Mac by using a graphical file system browser.
Check the volume related information.
Extract files you need (copy files to Windows hard disk free).
Mount & read disk images like .dmg and .sparsebundle.
Create disk images from the volume on Mac.
The partition schemes including Master Boot Record, GUID Partition Table, and Apple Partition Map are supported by HFSExplorer.
Attention!
You need to install Java first if you don’t have it on your PC since it’s required (Sun's Java SE runtime environment version 5.0 or greater in which OpenJDK works fine).
HFSExplorer: Launch error
No Java runtime environment found. HFSExplorer cannot function without Java.
Press “OK” to open up http://www.java.com where you can download a Java runtime environment for your system.
You should just click OK as prompted to download & install proper runtime environment when seeing the window above.
How to use HFSExplorer to read Mac hard drive on Windows:
Connect the Mac-formatted external hard drive to the Windows computer properly.
Launch HFSExplorer as administrator on your computer.
Select File from the menu bar at the top of the opening window.
Choose Load file system from device from the submenu (you can also press Ctrl + L directly).
Click on the Autodetect button to automatically detects HFS/HFS+/HSFX partitions on your system (you can also Select a device or Specify device name manually).
Pick out the files and folders you want to view and click Extract.
Choose a folder as the destination place to store the items selected in the previous step (they’ll be copied immediately).
Expand the target folder to read files on your Windows PC.
If the connected external hard drive is not showing up on PC, you can’t detect it in step 5. You must make it appear in Windows first.
Is there any other hard drive reader for Windows? Of course, yes; please move on.
Choice 2: Apple HFS+ Drivers
Another way to access HFS + files in Windows 10 for free is installing Apple HFS + drivers.
Tip: The Apple HFS + drivers only give you read access to the files in Mac-formatted drives.
Steps to read Mac drives on PC with Apple HFS + drivers:
First, you should make sure you don’t have Paragon or MacDrive (the hard drive readers I will talk about later) on your Windows computer. If you do, please remove them now.
Second, you should download the correct Windows driver package to your local drive.
Third, you should configure your Windows as follow.
Go to the default download path (Downloads folder) to extract the downloaded zip file.
Find AppleHFS.sys and AppleMNT.sys files.
Copy them by pressing Ctrl + C (you can also do it by right clicking & choosing Copy).
Go to this path: C:WindowsSystem32drivers.
Copy them by pressing Ctrl + V (you can also right click on any blank area & choose Paste).
Navigate to the downloaded folder to find Add_AppleHFS.reg file.
Open the .reg file to bring up a Registry Editor prompt window.
Click on the Yes button and then click OK.
Restart your computer to make changes take effect.
Fourth, you should connect the Mac-formatted drive to your PC -> open File Explorer (also called Windows Explorer) -> locate that drive under This PC -> access files you want.
Tip: You may find the File Explorer has stopped working or not responding when trying to open it; please don’t be nervous since this problem can be fixed.
Choice 3: HFS+ for Windows
Though the Paragon HFS+ for Windows is a paid hard driver reader, you’ll love it after using.
What can Paragon HFS+ for Windows do for you?
The speed is fast and the performance is stable.
The Mac file systems are integrated into Windows File Explorer.
It provides full read and write access to Mac drives formatted with HFS, HFS +, and HFSX (just like other drives in Windows).
It allows Windows programs to read from or write to the Mac-formatted drive on Windows.
There are additional features that worth the cost.
How much does it cost?
The Paragon HFS+ for Windows is sold on the official website for $19.95 with a single seat license; $49.95 with one license worked on 3 PCs.
If you don’t want to spend money in reading Mac drive on Windows, you should download the trial edition; it is free for use for 10 days. You can access, copy files from or to the Mac drive during this period; it’s enough.
Ms-dos (fat)
Choice 4: MacDrive
If your Mac drive is formatted with APFS (Apple File System), you won’t be able to read Mac hard drive on Windows because there are no free apps designed for it. But you have many choices of paid applications to access & edit Mac drive files on Windows; MacDrive is a popular one designed by Mediafour.
Merits of MacDrive:
It is used to help users read data from and write data to Mac disks from Windows directly.
You can read both APFS and HFS+ drives in File Explorer.
It allows you to create and partition Mac disks on your Windows.
A graphical interface is offered for Mac-formatted drives verification, format, and repair.
It’s a trusted solution which can date back to 1996.
The only drawback of MacDrive seems to be the selling price is higher than some similar tools. You need to pay $49.99 for the Standard version or $69.99 for the Pro version.
Mac Os Extended Case Sensitive
Is it worth the price? Yes, if you have such needs; it also includes unique features like support for Mac-formatted RAID disks.
Choice 5: Paragon APFS for Windows
Paragon also designed an APFS for Windows app for reading APFS Mac drive on Windows; it is considered as one of the main competitors of MacDrive.
Features of Paragon APFS for Windows:
It provides read and write access to Mac drives formatted with APFS.
It also allows you to access and edit compressed and cloned files (you can only access the encrypted volumes without making any changes).
It gives support to auto-mounting at start-up; the partition tools of MacDrive are not included in this app.
The biggest disadvantage of Paragon APFS for Windows when compared to MacDrive is the HFS+ support. The biggest advantage of Paragon APFS for Windows over MacDrive is the price – it costs only $49.95 for one license worked on 3 PCs.
Of course, there are many other tools available for you to read Mac drives on Windows (10/8/7, etc.).
Mac Os Extended Journaled
Bonus Tip
You can format your Mac hard drive to exFAT, which supports both Windows and Mac OS X. In this way, you can get full read and write access to exFAT drives on Windows without any additional third-party software.
The only thing you need to worry is that the data on Mac drives will be removed. So you need to turn to MiniTool Power Data Recovery as mentioned in part 1 to recover the files you need after formatting.
How to format a hard drive? Basically, there are three ways.
Right click on the drive in File Explorer -> choose Format.
OpenDisk Management -> right click on the target drive -> choose Format.
Format Partition with MiniTool Partition Wizard – a professional disk manager.
Final Thoughts
Mac Apfs Vs Apfs Encrypted
Though you can’t access a Mac-formatted drive on a Windows computer directly, there are useful ways and tools to help you read Mac drive on Windows easily. Please just follow the steps mentioned above and choose the tool depending on your needs.