Jun 26, 2021 MiniTool Partition Wizard is not available for Mac but there are a few alternatives that runs on macOS with similar functionality. The best Mac alternative is Stellar Partition Manager. As the best partition manager, MiniTool Partition Wizard Free and Pro/Pro Platinum/Pro Ultimate editions are designed to satisfy home users' requirements on disk/partition management. Free Edition enables you to conduct basic disks and partitions. To manage hard disks including both basic. But MiniTool Partition Wizard can help you make a partition more easily. Step 1: Launch MiniTool Partition Wizard (free edition) and go to its main interface. Right click a partition and choose Move/Resize. This will open a window. Step 2: In the window, drag the arrow to resize the partition. If you drag the whole partition.

Summary :

Do you know what the best format for external hard drive is on Mac? Do you know how to format an external hard drive on Mac? If you want to recover your lost and deleted files on an external drive on Mac, do you know how to do this? MiniTool Software will show the related information in this article.

When Do You Need to Use an External Hard Drive on Mac?

In many cases, you need to use an external hard drive on your Mac computer. For example:

• If you want to back up your Mac data using Time Machine, you need to use an external hard drive to save the Time Machine backups.
• If your Mac runs out of space, you can use an external hard drive to increase the storage.
• If you want to transfer your Mac data to another computer, you need to use an external hard drive.
• And more….

No matter under which circumstance you need to use an external storage device on your Mac, you may want your Mac external drive to be formatted with the best file system to make it to be recognized on your Mac and maximize the best performance.

Well then, which is the best format for external hard drive Mac? You can get some useful information from the following part.

Which Mac File System Is the Best for an External Drive?

Before choosing the best format for Mac external drive, you should know which file system formats are available in Disk Utility on Mac.

Disk Utility supports the following file system formats:

• Apple File System (APFS): the file system is used by macOS 10.13 (High Sierra) or later.
• Mac OS Extended (HFS+): the file system is used by macOS 10.12 (Sierra) or earlier.
• MS-DOS (FAT): the file system is compatible with both Mac and Windows.
• exFAT: the file system is compatible with both Mac and Windows.

Now, we will introduce these four Mac file systems and this information can help you find the best file system format for external hard drive on Mac.

Apple File System (APFS)

APFS is the default file system for Mac computers that are running macOS 10.13 (High Sierra) or later. It was announced at Apple’s Developers Conference (WWDC) in June 2016, meaning to replace HFS+ that was released in 1998. APFS has many attractive features like snapshots, strong encryption, space sharing, fast directory sizing, and improved file system fundamentals.

APFS is optimized for Flash/SSD storage used in recent macOS. Due to this, it can also be used with the older systems with traditional hard disk drives (HDD) and external, direct-attached storage drives. Besides, you can use the APFS file system for both bootable and data volumes on macOS 10.13 or later systems.

APFS is intelligent. It can allocate the disk space within a container/partition on demand. For example, if your APFS container has multiple volumes, the free space in the container is shared. The free space can be automatically allocated to any volume that needs more storage to save data.

When necessary, you can arrange reserve and quota sizes for each volume. The volume only uses part of the overall container. As a result, the available space is the total size of the container minus the size of all the volumes in the container.

APFS has the following four formats:

• APFS: it uses the APFS format. If you don’t need to use an encrypted or case-sensitive format, you can choose this format.
• APFS (Encrypted): it uses the APFS format. You can encrypt the volume if you format the Mac volume with this file system on your Mac.
• APFS (Case-sensitive): it uses the APFS format. This file system can distinguish the case of the file and folder names. For instance, folders that are named Work and WORK are two different folders.
• APFS (Case-sensitive, Encrypted): it uses the APFS format. This file system integrates the features of the above two formats. That is, it is case-sensitive to the names of the file and folder, and you can encrypt the volume.

You can choose the best format for external hard drive on Mac based on your requirements.

Mac OS Extended (HFS+)

Mac OS Extended, which is also known as HFS+/HFS Plus or HFS Extended, is a journaling file system developed by Apple Inc. It is using on macOS 10.12 (Sierra) or earlier. It was the primary Mac OS X file system until it was replaced with APFS.

It has the following four formats:

• Mac OS Extended (Journaled): it uses the Mac format of Journaled HFS Plus. It can protect the integrity of the hierarchical file system. If you don’t need to encrypt the volume or distinguish the case of the file and folder names, you can choose to use this format.
• Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted): it uses the Mac format. This file system needs you to set a password to encrypt the partition.
• Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled): it uses the Mac format. It is case-sensitive to the names of folders.
• Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled, Encrypted): it uses the Mac format. It integrates the features of the above two formats: you need to set a password for the partition to encrypt it and it is case-sensitive to the names of folders.

MS-DOS (FAT) & exFAT

Both FAT and exFAT are compatible with both Mac and Windows. The differences are that FAT is used for a volume that is 32GB or less, while exFAT is used for a volume that exceeds 32GB.

If you want to use the external hard drive on both Windows and Mac, you can choose to use one of these two file systems. In comparison, exFAT is more compatible.

Want to format an external hard drive for Mac and Windows PC? This post will show specific methods to make external hard drive compatible with Mac and PC.

Apple File System (APFS) vs. Mac OS Extended (HFS+) vs. MS-DOS (FAT) vs. exFAT

Which is the best file system for Mac external hard drive? The answer is not fixed. You should select the best file system based on your application scenarios.

The following table is for your reference:

How to Format External Hard Drive on Mac?

When you know which file system you can use on your Mac, you can format the external hard drive to that format. You can use Mac Disk Utility to do it.

Now, we will show you how to format an external hard drive via Disk Utility:

1. Connect the external hard drive to your Mac via a USB cable.

2. Open Disk Utility. You can go to Finder > Application > Utilities > Disk Utility to open it. You can also press Command+Space to open Spotlight search and use it to search for disk utility to open it.

3. You will see a list of available disks on the left section of Disk Utility. Then, click the View button on the top menu and select Show All Devices.

4. Select the external hard drive you want to format from the left-side list and click the Erase button to continue.

5. In the Erase dialogue, expand Scheme and select GUID Partition Map.

6. Expand Format and select the file system you want to use. Here, we take APFS (Encrypted) as an example.

7. Type a name for the volume.

8. Click Erase.

9. Click Done.

How to Recover Data from an External Hard Drive on Mac?

You may delete your important files in your Mac external hard drive. You can use a professional Mac data recovery software to get them back. You can use Stellar Data Recovery for Mac, a free Mac file recovery tool.

This software is specially designed to recover lost and deleted files on Mac as long as they are not overwritten by new data. It has a trial edition. You can first use it to scan the drive you want to recover data from and check whether you can find the files you want to rescue. You can go to the MiniTool official download center to get this freeware.

After that, you can use this software to retrieve files from your external hard drive on Mac.

1. Make sure the external hard drive is connected to your Mac computer.

2. Open Stellar Data Recovery for Mac.

3. Select the data types you want to recover. If you want to recover all types, you can just keep the current selections.

4. Click the Next button to continue.

5. The software will show you the drive it can detect. You need to select the plugged external hard drive and click the Scan button to continue. If you want to perform a deep scan, you can turn on Deep Scan (on the bottom left corner of the software interface).

6. The software will begin to scan the selected external hard drive. When the scanning ends, you will see the scan results, including the deleted and existing files in the drive. You can check whether your needed files are there.

7. You can’t use the trial edition of this software to recover the found files. You need to update the software to an advanced edition to recover files. You need to go to the MiniTool official site to get such an edition.

8. After updating this software to a full edition, you can select the files you want to recover, click the Recover button, and select a suitable location to save the selected files. You should remember that you should not save the files to the original location. If you do that, your deleted files could be overwritten by the recovered files and become unrecoverable.

Summary

Reading here, you should know the best format for an external hard drive on Mac. Yes, you should select a file system according to your situation. Then, you can use Mac Disk Utility to format the external hard drive to your needed file system format. Additionally, if you want to recover data from your external hard drive, you can try Stellar Data Recovery for Mac.

If you are bothered by other related issues and searching for solutions, or you have other suggestions about the Mac file system, you can let us know in the comments or contact us via [email protected].

Best Format for External Hard Drive Mac FAQ

Minitool Partition Wizard Free

Summary :

Which is the best Mac emulator for Windows? How to install a macOS virtual machine on PC? In this post, MiniTool Partition Wizard gives you a step-by-step guide on how to install a macOS virtual machine on PC via VMware.

Best Mac Emulator for Windows

For many years, Mac and Windows PC have been two incompatible camps. Apple Mac series computers have always been niche products, and fewer people use them. In general, under the same configuration, Mac computers are almost twice as expensive as Windows computers.

However, comparing Windows PCs, the Mac PCs have a more beautiful design and are easier to use. If you don't want to buy an Apple computer but want to try this operating system, you can choose to either use hackintoshes or install a macOS virtual machine on Windows.

However, installing hackintoshes is very complicated. If your PC's specs are not very bad, installing a macOS virtual machine is recommended. Then, which is the best Mac emulator for Windows? Most people will choose between VirtualBox and VMware. I am of no exception.

At first, my choice is VirtualBox, because many people recommend using this software. I follow steps in these posts to install the macOS virtual machine, but the installation fails with no exception.

The reason may be that installing a macOS virtual machine on VirtualBox needs a file named 'VirtualBox Boot.vmdk'. I see this process in many videos but unfortunately many posts don't mention this step. In addition, if you want to get this file, you must download it from some posts that are some private websites full of ads. I don't like that, so I choose to try VMware.

Fortunately, my colleague in technical department has ever succeeded in installing a macOS virtual machine with VMware. Thanks to him, this post can be completed smoothly. So, in my mind, VMware is the best Mac emulator for Windows, although this judgment is a little subjective.

Preparatory Work

To run Mac on Windows smoothly, you should make sure your PC meets the following requirements:

• CPU: 4th Intel i5 or higher (if you AMD CPU, you will encounter more errors and bugs)
• RAM: at least 8GB
• Storage: more than 100 GB free space
• OS: 64-bit Windows 7 or later

If your PC doesn't meet the above system requirements, the macOS VM will freeze frequently. Then, you should get the following thing prepared:

1. VMware software and unlocker file.
2. A partition specialized for the macOS virtual machine (optional).
3. A macOS image in .cdr format.

1. Install VMware and Download Unlocker

Both VMware Workstations Pro and VMware Workstation Player (the free version) are OK. You just need to install one of them. The installation process is very simple. You just need to download this software from its official website and install it normally. If you have VMware installed already, you can skip this step.

This post shows you what causes error 'VMware Workstation Pro can't run on Windows' and offers you 4 solutions.

Then, you need to download the unlocker file that is the key file making VMware allow you to install macOS virtual machine. The unlocker file is released on GitHub, an open-source project hosting platform. On this platform, the developer will publish the source code of the unlocker file. Therefore, in my mind, the unlocker file is reliable. Please follow the steps below:

Step 1: Go to the website: https://github.com/paolo-projects/unlocker and click Release. Then, download the latest unlocker.zip file.

Step 2: Close VMware software. Then, right click blank area of the Taskbar and choose Task Manager. In the Processes tab, right-click and end any tasks related to VMware.

Step 3: Extract the unlocker.zip file. Open the extracted folder to find win-install.cmd file. Right click this file and choose Run as administrator. Then, this file will run to get some tools for VMware. All you need do is to wait for the window to shut down automatically.

How to troubleshoot 100 percent disk usage in Windows 10? This post focus on the solutions to Windows 10 100% disk usage.

2. Make a Partition

This step is recommended, because the virtual machine file will become larger and larger. Placing all virtual machine files into one partition is in favor of centralized management. To make a partition, you can use the shrink volume feature in Disk Management. But MiniTool Partition Wizard can help you make a partition more easily.

Step 1: Launch MiniTool Partition Wizard (free edition) and go to its main interface. Right click a partition and choose Move/Resize. This will open a window.

Step 2: In the window, drag the arrow to resize the partition. If you drag the whole partition block, you can change the location of the partition. Through this way, you can make unallocated space on the location you want. Click the OK button to continue.

Step 3: Right click the unallocated space and choose Create. Just keep everything in default and click the OK button.

Step 4: Click Apply button to execute the pending operations.

You can enlarge the hard disk of virtual machine if you set the disk to be so small at the beginning of creating virtual machine, and here are detailed steps.

3. Get a MacOS Image in .cdr Format

Where to get macOS .cdr image? You can create it by yourself or download it online. If you want to create by yourself, here is the guide:

Step 1: Download a macOS installation package (for example, Install macOS Catalina. app) from the Apple Store into the apps directory.

Step 2: Open the terminal and perform the following commands:

• hdiutil create -o /tmp/Install macOS Catalina -size 8300m -layout SPUD -fs HFS+J (* This command will create an empty .dmg disk image with a size of 8300m under /tmp The .dmg image should be at least 500M larger than the macOS app file. In addition, Install macOS Catalina is the name of the .dmg disk image, you can replace it accordingly.)
• hdiutil attach /tmp/Install macOS Catalina.dmg -noverify -mountpoint /Volumes/Install macOS Catalina (* This command will mount the .dmg image that you created just now to directory /Volumes/Install macOS Catalina.)
• sudo /Applications/Install macOS Catalina.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/Install macOS Catalina (* This command will write the macOS app file into the .dmg disk image you mounted just now. Then, you need to enter password and wait for the writing process to complete.)
• hdiutil detach /Volumes/Install macOS Catalina (* This command will unmount .dmg disk image.)
• hdiutil convert /tmp/Install macOS Catalina.dmg -format UDTO -o ~/Desktop/Install macOS Catalina (* This command will convert the .dmg image into .cdr image and save it into desktop with the name 'Install macOS Catalina'. Wait until the process to complete and then you can find the .cdr file on your desktop.)
• rm /tmp/Install macOS Catalina.dmg (* This command will delete the .dmg image in the tmp folder to free up space.)

How to Create a MacOS Virtual Machine with VMware

Now you can install Mac on Windows with VMware, the best Mac emulator for Windows. Here is the guide:

Step 1: Open VMware and click File > New Virtual Machine. Choose Typical and click Next.

Step 2: Choose Installer disc image file (iso) and click Browse. This will allow you to choose the macOS image file. But please note that you can see the .cdr image only if you modify the file type to All files. Then, click Next.

Step 3: Choose Apple Mac OS X and pick the right version. Then, click Next.

Step 4: Check the name and the location of the macOS virtual machine. Then, click Next. Specify disk capacity. Please make sure the max size is at least 40 GB and then click Next. Then, click Finish.

Step 5: Go to VM > Settings. In the Virtual Machine Settings window, you can change the macOS hardware settings. I recommend you to change the Memory to at least 4GB, otherwise the macOS virtual machine will not run smoothly. Click OK to save changes.

Step 6: Then, you need to modify the configuration file, otherwise you will get VMware unrecoverable error when booting the macOS. First, please navigate to the location of the macOS virtual machine in your PC. Right click the macOS virtual machine configuration file (.vmx) and open it with notepad.

Step 7: In the notepad, scroll down to find the code line: smc.present = 'TRUE'. Under this code line, add the following code line: smc.version = '0'. Then, save and exit. Now, you can start the macOS virtual machine and it should open smoothly.

This post introduces virtualization technology (VT-x and AMD-V) and shows you how to enable it in BIOS to solve not in a hypervisor partition error.

Step 8: Follow the on-screen wizard until you are asked to choose a disk for installing the macOS. In this case, go to Utilities > Disk Utility. Click the VMware Virtual SATA Hard Drive Media in the left panel and click Erase. Follow the wizard to rename and erase the disk. After completing this process, exit Utilities tool and choose the disk you just renamed to install macOS on it.

Step 9: Follow the wizard to customize settings and then you can use the macOS on your PC.

Bottom Line

Is this post useful to you? Have you encountered problem when following the above steps to install macOS virtual machine? Do you know other good Mac emulators for Windows? Please leave a comment in the following zone.

Minitool Partition Wizard Vs Macrium Reflect

In addition, if you have difficulty in moving/resizing partition, please contact us via [email protected]. We will get back to you as soon as possible.

Mac Emulator for Windows FAQ

1. Install VMware and download unlocker file from GitHub.
2. Get a macOS image in .cdr format.
3. Create a macOS virtual machine in VMware with the macOS image.
4. Modify the macOS configuration file.
5. Perform macOS installation process.