best format for a hard drive connected to…

best format for a hard drive connected to a mini

Since I got my new mini a month ago. I started having errors messages that I didn't eject my external drive properly when in fact, I didn't eject it at all. I had a Mini prior to this and had no problems. Now I'm getting error messages saying I need to re format my external hard drive or I will loose everything. Now is this a sign the external hard drive is going bad. Or is it that the format isn't really working with the latest OX. And since I have to re format the hard drive. What would be the best format for it. I just reformatted it using MS.DOS-Fat32. But now I can not move certain movies back on because they are too large. There is plenty of space. Thank you . :-)

Posted on Dec 16, 2017 1:10 PM

Posted on Dec 17, 2017 9:24 AM

A precaution would be backup the externally enclosed drive and then reformat

to HFS+ Journaled; as that could support storage of system files if needs be.

Although the latest Sierra & High Sierra are made to run with a new Apple format

the storage drives need not have that in use; and if you use peripheral devices or

non-Apple gear, their files can still be drag/dropped or stored. However that said

I'd still have additional external storage for any non-Apple gear you may want to

archive separately. (A good backup external enclosed storage would have its own

power supply, & be sufficient for clones [of present or past] running Mac OS X.

And be capable of connecting to the Mac at sufficient data rate for boot reasons.)

While I've some externally enclosed HDDs including FireWire (for clones) there are

some fairly good examples at OWC macsales for most Apple backups. Be sure to

have a separate drive(s) for incremental backups, and for Time Machine activities.

In any event...

Good luck & happy trails! 🙂

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