Set up an external hard disk on OS X

More and more users have chosen the model for installing SSD drives when they buy Macs. SSD can make OS X run more smoothly, but its 256G, 128G capacity, more and more can not meet the needs of people. Connecting an external hard drive to your Mac is a temporary solution. OS x is well compatible, making most external hard drives Plug and play, and no additional settings are required. However, if you encounter some rare external hard drive, you can follow the steps described below to set up the reuse.

After you get a new hard drive, the first thing you need to consider is which file system to use to format the hard drive. We recommend that you use FAT32: This is a file system supported by multiple (if not all) operating systems that can read and write correctly in Windows and OS X systems. If your external hard drive is often taken, that FAT32 is your only option. This file system also has its limitations: it is not a log-type file system, it lacks support for user rights, and it uses the MBR (Master boot record) to boot the system and is incompatible with Apple's system. The above flaw makes it impossible for OS X to bring its own system encryption to the FAT32 file system.

When you purchase an external hard drive, the manufacturer may have some driver, management, and backup software attached to it. These software may provide some very convenient operation, however, we do not recommend that you use it (if you are buying a hard drive that has more than one hard drive, a RAID capability, or you need to install a driver): OS X has a handy management tool built into it to manage the hard drive, and the software provided by the vendor may also be available in OS X After the update, there is a compatibility issue that can cause data loss in serious cases.

In combination with several of the factors described above, if you buy an external hard drive using a RAID array, you need to install the vendor-supplied driver, and if the external hard drive has only one disk, you can use the disk tool built into OS X. If your external hard drive needs to be used under Windows, you need to use the FAT32 file system, and you can use the Mac OS Extension (log) file system only if you are using an external hard drive under OS X. ­

To format your hard disk under a Mac, simply connect the external hard drive to the Mac, and then open Disk utility, follow these steps:

1. In the "Disk Utility" interface, select the hard disk you want to format. To prevent you from choosing the wrong hard drive, disk utility lists the hardware manufacturer, the size of the hard drive, and so on to help you identify the hard drive.

2. Select the right "Partition" tab

3. In the "Volume scheme" drop-down menu, select "One Partition" (if you need to divide the hard disk into multiple partitions, select the number you want here). After you select the number of partitions, the default file system is MAC OS Extensions (log), and if you want to use a different file system, be sure to select the correct file system before you format it

4. Click "Options" to select the appropriate zoning scheme. If you use FAT32, select master boot record; Other file systems, use the GUID partition table

5. Click "Apply", waiting for the progress bar to complete, the disk is formatted successfully

When the format is complete, OS x unloads the hard drive first, and then mounts the hard drive again with the new settings. If you are a newly purchased hard drive, you can safely use these steps after you perform them. If you need to check if the hard drive has physical bad or other errors, you need to use a third-party tool to do it.

Disk Utilities also provide a useful feature: "Erase free space." It can safely erase the data on the hard drive, so that the data on the hard disk can not be restored back. If you need to sell or destroy the hard drive, this feature will allow your data to disappear without a trace: Select the partition you want to erase, then click on the "Erase" tab, select "Erase free Space", it provides "0 clear data", "7 Erase" and "35 erase" three options, respectively corresponding " Using 0来 to overwrite history files, 7 times with 0 overwrite history files, and 0 overwrite history files 35 times, the following two operations require a time of 7 times and 35 times times the first operation. While these operations can take you a few hours, the time is worth paying for hard drives that store important data.