When you’re having trouble reading your SSD USB flash drive. A Mac wants an ExFAT drive with a GUID Partition Map for the drive’s scheme. You use your Mac’s disk management software Disk Utility to format.Īnd even if you plan to use the ExFAT format often the shipped drive isn’t properly formatted for Mac. It means for the drive manufacturers that those drive can be used on a Mac or a Windows PC.Īnd when you plan on sharing your drive between a Mac and a Windows PC that’s fine.īut if you only plan on using your external SSD on your Mac then ExFAT isn’t as optimized for a Mac.Īnd it’s best for you to take the few minutes it takes to reformat your drive. Many new SSDs are shipped with an ExFAT format. What To Do When Your New SSD Is ExFAT Formatted How to update those files and how and where to write new files. Your Mac uses the format of your drive to find out where your files and folders are on the drive. The file system format allows your Mac computer to understand what is on your drive. Or an older Mac operating system won’t be able to work with an APFS formatted external drive.Ī file system format on an external SSD ( Solid State Drive) is how your Mac first recognizes your drive. APFS is the best file system format when you’re only running your SSD external disk drive on your new Mac.īut if you plan to share your drive with an older Mac running an earlier Mac OS x operating system release. Though for your external SSD drive you do have a choice.

Like the Apple silicon M1 Mac and M2 Mac come with APFS on their internal drives by default. The best format for your SSD on your new Mac is APFS (Apple File System). You’ll need to format your SSD drive as Mac OS Extended instead. You can’t use an APFS drive as a backup place for your Time Machine backup. The support for APFS external drives has grown better through the Mac OS releases since 10.13 – High Sierra.Īnd for a Mac computer running MacOS Catalina and earlier. If you want to use your SSD for a Time Machine backup then your OS X version matters.īecause the APFS format is a fairly recent file system. The version of the Mac operating system (Mac OS X) your Mac runs.ģ. The best format to pick for your external SSD depends on a couple of things.Ģ. It doesn’t matter if your Mac is a MacBook Pro. Other Formats You Can Use On Your SSD On MacĬhoices On What Format Should An SSD Be For Mac.The Different Types Of APFS On A Mac SSD.

An APFS Format SSD And Why It's The Best For Mac.What To Do When Your New SSD Is ExFAT Formatted.Choices On What Format Should An SSD Be For Mac.

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