Discover the world of external hard drives for Mac. Compare portable, USB and external hard drive models for office and home and shop online. Hard drives come in two main sizes-'3.5 inch', and '2.5 inch'-which are technical classifications that refer to the width of a hard drive's platter (the disk that stores your computer's memory), but not the full dimensions of the hard drive unit itself. Your hard drive's actual dimensions will determine its classification. External Hard Disk Drives (HDD) The cheapest option is to purchase a standard USB external hard disk drive. Because they rely on cheaper, mechanical hard disk drives, they also offer high capacities. However, they’re more prone to fail and also more susceptible to damage from bumps and drops.
Erasing your disk: For most reasons to erase, including when reformatting a disk or selling, giving away, or trading in your Mac, you should erase your entire disk.
- For small disks this was fine, but when disk sizes started to approach 1GB in size the minimum allocation block size was 16 KB ( / 65535) = 16384.25, but you need to truncate to 16384. What this means is that a 1 byte file on a 1GB HFS disk required 16,384 bytes to store on the hard drive, so there was too much wasted space.
- Discover the world of hard drives and storage options for Mac. Compare Apple hard drives and models for office or home and shop online.
Erasing a volume on your disk: In other cases, such as when your disk contains multiple volumes (or partitions) and you don't want to erase them all, you can erase specific volumes on the disk.
Erasing a disk or volume permanently deletes all of its files. Before continuing, make sure that you have a backup of any files that you want to keep.
How to erase your disk
- Start up from macOS Recovery. Then select Disk Utility from the Utilities window and click Continue.
If you're not erasing the disk your Mac started up from, you don't need to start up from macOS Recovery: just open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder of your Applications folder. - Choose View > Show All Devices from the menu bar in Disk Utility. The sidebar now shows your disks (devices) and any containers and volumes within them. The disk your Mac started up from is at the top of the list. In this example, Apple SSD is the startup disk:
- Select the disk that you want to erase. Don't see your disk?
- Click Erase, then complete these items:
- Name: Type the name that you want the disk to have after you erase it.
- Format: Choose APFS or Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Disk Utility shows a compatible format by default.
- Scheme: Choose GUID Partition Map.
- Click Erase to begin erasing your disk and every container and volume within it. You might be asked to enter your Apple ID. Forgot your Apple ID?
- When done, quit Disk Utility.
- If you want your Mac to be able to start up from the disk you erased, reinstall macOS on the disk.
How to erase a volume on your disk
- Start up from macOS Recovery. Then select Disk Utility from the Utilities window and click Continue.
If you're not erasing the volume your Mac started up from, you don't need to start up from macOS Recovery: just open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder of your Applications folder. - In the sidebar of Disk Utility, select the volume that you want to erase. The volume your Mac started up from is named Macintosh HD, unless you changed its name. Don't see your volume?
- Click Erase, then complete these items:
- Name: Type the name that you want the volume to have after you erase it.
- Format: Choose APFS or Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Disk Utility shows a compatible format by default.
- If you see an Erase Volume Group button, the volume you selected is part of a volume group. In that case, you should erase the volume group. Otherwise, click Erase to erase just the selected volume. You might be asked to enter your Apple ID. Forgot your Apple ID?
- When done, quit Disk Utility.
- If you want your Mac to be able to start up from the volume you erased, reinstall macOS on that volume.
Reasons to erase
![Disk Disk](https://www.bhphotovideo.com/images/images500x500/Apple_MA988G_A_500GB_SATA_Hard_Disk_458244.jpg)
You can erase at any time, including in circumstances such as these:
- You want to permanently erase all content from your Mac and restore it to factory settings. This is one of the final steps before selling, giving away, or trading in your Mac.
- You're changing the format of a disk, such as from a PC format (FAT, ExFAT, or NTFS) to a Mac format (APFS or Mac OS Extended).
- You received a message that your disk isn't readable by this computer.
- You're trying to resolve a disk issue that Disk Utility can't repair.
- The macOS installer doesn't see your disk or can't install on it. For example, the installer might say that your disk isn't formatted correctly, isn't using a GUID partition scheme, contains a newer version of the operating system, or can't be used to start up your computer.
- The macOS installer says that you may not install to this volume because it is part of an Apple RAID.
About APFS and Mac OS Extended
Disk Utility in macOS High Sierra or later can erase using either the newer APFS (Apple File System) format or the older Mac OS Extended format, and it automatically chooses a compatible format for you.
How to choose between APFS and Mac OS Extended
Disk Utility tries to detect the type of storage and show the appropriate format in the Format menu. If it can't, it chooses Mac OS Extended, which works with all versions of macOS. If you want to change the format, answer these questions:
- Are you formatting the disk that came built into your Mac?
If the built-in disk came APFS-formatted, Disk Utility suggests APFS. Don't change it to Mac OS Extended. - Are you about to install macOS High Sierra or later for the first time on the disk?
If you need to erase your disk before installing High Sierra or later for the first time on that disk, choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled). During installation, the macOS installer decides whether to automatically convert to APFS—without erasing your files. - Are you preparing a Time Machine backup disk or bootable installer?
Choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) for any disk that you plan to use as a Time Machine backup disk or as a bootable installer. - Will you be using the disk with another Mac?
If the other Mac isn't using macOS High Sierra or later, choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Earlier versions of macOS don't work with APFS-formatted volumes.
How to identify the format currently in use
If you want to know which format is currently in use, use any of these methods: How to run software on mac.
- Select the volume in the Disk Utility sidebar, then check the information shown on the right. For more detail, choose File > Get Info from the Disk Utility menu bar.
- Open System Information and select Storage in the sidebar. The File System column on the right shows the format of each volume.
- Select the volume in the Finder, then choose File > Get Info from the menu bar. The Get Info window shows the Format of that volume.
If your disk or volume doesn't appear, or the erase fails
- Shut down your Mac, then unplug all nonessential devices from your Mac.
- If you're erasing an external drive, make sure that it's connected directly to your Mac using a cable that you know is good. Then turn the drive off and back on.
- If your disk or volume still doesn't appear in Disk Utility, or Disk Utility reports that the erase process failed, your disk or Mac might need service. If you need help, please contact Apple Support.
Learn more
![Macbook Hard Disk Drive Size Macbook Hard Disk Drive Size](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/6WHsQFYutRQ/hqdefault.jpg)
- If you can't start up from macOS Recovery, you can use a different startup disk instead.
- If Disk Utility shows a Security Options button in the Erase window, you can click that button to choose between a faster (but less secure) erase and a slower (but more secure) erase. Some older versions of Disk Utility offer the option to zero all data instead. These secure-erase options aren't offered or needed for solid-state drives (SSDs) and flash storage.
I don’t know …. Don’t worry. P&T IT BROTHER prepared this article for you ! ? ? ? Today, we are going to let you know how to find or check your current hard disk size and available space. (Hard Drive: It is a computer component that stores your data. pictures, documents, movie and etc. If it is full, you are not able to store more information on your mac computer. It is important to check your available space and manage the hard drive space.) Are you ready to know ? Let’s go and find out how. It is extremely easy !
Macbook Air Hard Drive Size
How to find your hard drive usage & available space on Mac
1. Click the Apple logo on the top left
2. Click “About This Mac”
3. Click “More Info…” button
4. Click “Storage” menu
5. Here you go. You are done !
Macbook Hard Drive Replacement
We hope this blog post helped you. ? ? ? We are always try to explain easy ! If you could not make it, leave a comment here so we can help you! Thank you very much for reading this, and don’t forget to check out our other blog posts !
Bye Bye ? ? ?