I need to reformat an external drive. What format do you suggest? Running Monterrey OS.
please see this apple support page: Erase and reformat a storage device in Disk Utility on Mac - Apple Support
please see this apple support page: Erase and reformat a storage device in Disk Utility on Mac - Apple Support
It depends on how you will be using the drive.
If you are only going to use it as an external data drive for a Mac (or Macs), then I recommend GUID partition and MacOS Extended (Journaled).
If you need to share the drive with Windows, then GUID partition and exFAT (using Disk Utility since Windows may use a file allocation size that is not recognized by macOS).
If this will be a Time Machine backup drive, then TM may dictate the format. I believe Monterey now requires a TM backup drive to be erased as GUID partition and APFS.
I don't recommend using APFS on an external drive unless absolutely necessary such as a TM backup drive, since APFS is a new file system which still seems to have some growing pains which may sometimes require completely erasing the drive when First Aid is unable to repair the file system.
Just to close the loop - I cleared (moved files to another drive) the external drive holding the now not needed backup files and reformatted )Max OS journaled the external; drive. I no longer needed to empty the trash because after reformatting the trash from the trash can disappeared. All set. ready to go. Thanks for the help. - Alan
It depends up upon what you use it for.
Reformatting external drive.
