I have tried to format my new, and very fast, Samsung 1Tb SSD to APFS, but it looks like it cant be done and now I use exFAT. As I understand APFS should be used on SSD as it is better.
MacBook Pro 13”, macOS 10.15
You should definitely use APFS for your T7.
In the disk utility you need to go to "View" and select "show all devices".
Only then you will see the outside Container (most likely called "SAmsung PSSD T7 Media"
If you select this you can use "Erase"
Make sure to select GUID Partition... , only then you can select APFS as Format
You should definitely use APFS for your T7.
In the disk utility you need to go to "View" and select "show all devices".
Only then you will see the outside Container (most likely called "SAmsung PSSD T7 Media"
If you select this you can use "Erase"
Make sure to select GUID Partition... , only then you can select APFS as Format
In Disk Utility highlight the Samsung PSSD...... and click Erase
give the disk a name
Format: APFS
Scheme GUID Partition Map
click Erase.
When Done appears you have done it. Click on it.
Normally, the T5 and T7 drives can be reformatted directly in Disk Utility brand new. I have formatted mine as GUID and one was HFS+ the other was APFS. However I recall reading about an instance where the "TOUCH" version of the drive (this is the one you have with a button you can push that performs functions via proprietary firmware) could not be formatted like this right out of the box; first the Samsung drive utility had to be downloaded and then from that the drive could be erased and reformatted for a Mac. Then the user could go back and use Disk Utility to re-reformat (HFS+ or APFS with GUID) it to make it a generic drive without the proprietary firmware embedded.
eflaten wrote:
As I understand APFS should be used on SSD as it is better.
Personally I would avoid using APFS on an external drive unless you are going to install macOS 10.14+ on that drive. APFS is a new file system which is still experiencing growing pains. Many times the APFS file system becomes corrupt where Disk Utility First Aid is unable to repair it. Since Apple has not released the necessary AFPS documentation yet third party utilities are not available to repair APFS so this means you would need to transfer everything to another location and erase the drive in order to "fix" corrupt APFS file systems.
APFS should be much more reliable due to how it works plus it should work better with SSDs, but at this time I don't trust it for the reasons mentioned as I've seen APFS file system corruption occur way too much on our organization's Macs and Disk Utility could not repair it. This resulted in performance issues with the drive and with one drive it would cause kernel panics when connecting it to a Mac which made it extremely difficult to access the data.
If you need to use the proprietary Samsung software for the reasons @steve626 mentions, then make sure to keep this software up to date as a macOS update or upgrade may temporarily break the proprietary Samsung software causing you to temporarily lose access to the data until the software has been updated.
Make sure you have a backup of your external drive if you are storing any important and unique information on it.
Is it necessary or advised to install the Samsung software for this drive? If so, where do I install it?
Go to https://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/product/portable/t7/ and click Download Files, you'll find some Mac software.
If they're necessary, that I don't know, but I don't think so.
Can I format Samsung T7 SSD to APFS
