Change format for external drive?

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Level 1

4 points

Change format for external drive?

I recently installed a 1 T external drive to my MacBook Pro Mojave , purely for storage of scanned memorabilia of different types, mostly photographs. It is partitioned into six volumes into which I direct scanned images according to choice of personally-chosen category and to date have stored several gigabytes in each of the volumes. I don't know why I chose to format the drive as Mac OS Extended but now, from my research of Apple information material, it seems that APFS would have been preferred, with features not available to me. Do I correctly understand that APFS would give me preferable options as to flexibility of capacity in the various volumes? and can I now change the format to APFS without loss of stored images?

MacBook Pro Retina

Posted on Aug 16, 2019 1:08 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Eau Rouge

Level 8

42,554 points

Aug 17, 2019 8:43 AM in response to gavahu

I would stick with HFS+ Extended (Journaled) as you are just using the drive as a storage device, I don't think APFS offers any advantages really. If at any time you wish to use a Mac with an older OS, from El Capitan back they cannot access drives formatted as APFS.

If you want to go ahead you would need to copy any existing data on the drive over to another, reformat the first drive and then copy back the data originally stored on it.

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Answer 2

Barney-15E

Level 10

113,046 points

Aug 16, 2019 1:13 PM in response to gavahu

You might be able to Convert from Disk Utility, but I'm not certain.

The only flexibility I can imagine is the ability to make fake partitions (Volumes), that all share the same storage capacity of the container they are in. Since the drive is partitioned, I don't think you would get a single container with six Volumes. I think you would get six Containers. Essentially what you have already.

If you wan't the features of disk quotas, you must create those with the Volume. You cannot change them after the fact. If you converted the drive into APFS, you wouldn't have that ability.

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Answer 3

gavahu Author

Level 1

4 points

Aug 16, 2019 3:26 PM in response to Barney-15E

After review again of written material on Disk Utility it has become apparent that I should have used APFS up front. Contrary to MacOS Ext'd, that format enables creation of flexible size volumes, with storage space allotted as needed as you store images into the various volumes. It seems clear that the system can be converted but the user is warned to back up the data before beginning. I have a [different] external on TimeMachine and a couple thousand photos in iCloud but other than those I do not know how how I would back up the existing data on my storage external. Ideas?

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Answer 4

gavahu Author

Level 1

4 points

Aug 16, 2019 3:31 PM in response to Allan Eckert

With your input [and other] I am inclined to change the format of my external but need support on how to back up the data to avoid losing it. Believing that I have approx. one gigabyte of data, how do I store it while doing the change in format?

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Answer 5

Aug 16, 2019 3:36 PM in response to gavahu

Obtain an external disk drive with at least a gigabyte of storage space. For directions on how do this read https://eshop.macsales.com/guides/Cloning-Your-Data-to-a-New-Hard-Drive?gclsrc=aw.ds&&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIsPnc0bmI5AIVDtRkCh0Cswa_EAAYASAAEgJ9jfD_BwE

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Answer 6

Barney-15E

Level 10

113,046 points

Aug 17, 2019 7:56 AM in response to gavahu

Converting the drive will not give you the Volumes you desire.

You will end up with six containers, at best.

You need to move the data to another drive, then format that drive and create the volumes in one container.

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Answer 7

Aug 16, 2019 1:16 PM in response to gavahu

It is a destructive reformat as explained at http://www.macintosh-data-recovery.com/blog/how-to-convert-hfs-hard-drive-to-apfs-on-high-sierra/ so a backup will be necessary.

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Answer 8

Aug 17, 2019 7:58 AM in response to gavahu

That format is meant for solid state drives.

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Answer 9

gavahu Author

Level 1

4 points

Aug 17, 2019 10:06 AM in response to Eau Rouge

Thanks for you input. You have persuaded me to stick with what I have with MacOS Extended. Its an issue of not fixing what ain't broken. My Image Capture scanning has proceeded just fine.

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