WD 4TB Elements Desktop USB 3.1 Gen 1 External Hard Drive. As mentioned before, Macs can only read NTFS-formatted hard drives by default.

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Andrzej bialuski wrote: Up until I never have formatted any new external USB HD before starting to use it. Just plugged it into my Imac and started using it with factory formatting. My question is: should I format it first or just go ahead and start using it with the default factory formatting? The new drive is a Seagate USB3, 3 TB. Thanks in advance I always format new external drives. It may not be necessary, but it takes almost no effort.

Depending on the manufacturer, there may be partitions that rob you of some space, there may be a bunch of software/crapware that you don't need, they may have messed up (I recall on the Windows side of things some drives shipping with malware). So, for 1 minutes, I get the drive how I want with only what I want on it. Thanks for the reply, Bob. When formatting for Mac OS (as I've done it only once before), what settings do you recommend??

BobVell wrote: andrzej bialuski wrote: Up until I never have formatted any new external USB HD before starting to use it. Just plugged it into my Imac and started using it with factory formatting.

My question is: should I format it first or just go ahead and start using it with the default factory formatting? The new drive is a Seagate USB3, 3 TB. Thanks in advance I always format new external drives.

It may not be necessary, but it takes almost no effort. Depending on the manufacturer, there may be partitions that rob you of some space, there may be a bunch of software/crapware that you don't need, they may have messed up (I recall on the Windows side of things some drives shipping with malware).

So, for 1 minutes, I get the drive how I want with only what I want on it. Andrzej bialuski wrote: I ACTUALLY INTEND TO USE IT ONLY ON A MAC. I have two options though: Journaled or Journaled Encrypted.

Which one do I choose? Thanks I happen to use encrypted now because the hardware is sufficiently fast that you don't notice the on-the-fly encrypting and decrypting.

It isn't that I have anything particularly sensitive on the drives; on the other hand, if someone broke into my house and stole my drives, I'd rather that they didn't have access to everything. So, encryption is up to you. If you do encrypt, make sure you absolutely, positively do not forget the password! Andrzej bialuski wrote: I ACTUALLY INTEND TO USE IT ONLY ON A MAC. I have two options though: Journaled or Journaled Encrypted. Which one do I choose? I use Journaled Encrypted because the password encryption means if someone steals them, the personal data on them is not at risk of being exposed.

However, I use Journaled for any drives that must also be used with my Macs that are not upgraded to Mountain Lion yet, because full disk encryption is so new that a Mac running an OS X older than Mountain Lion has no way of reading that drive. Andrzej bialuski wrote: Up until I never have formatted any new external USB HD before starting to use it. Just plugged it into my Imac and started using it with factory formatting. My question is: should I format it first or just go ahead and start using it with the default factory formatting?

The new drive is a Seagate USB3, 3 TB. Thanks in advance I always format new hard drives, but that is just me. Many years ago, viruses were being loaded into new external hard drives, and formatting them eliminates the possibility of infecting your computer. That of course a few years ago, and I am sure that is very rare now, but better to be safe than sorry.

How to Check a Drive’s File System RELATED: So how do you know if your USB drive is? You don’t need to do anything special with Disk Utility–just plug in your USB drive and open the Finder. Right-click or Control-click the drive’s icon in the Finder’s sidebar (or on your desktop) and select “Get Info.” You’ll see the drive’s file system displayed to the right of “Format” under the General heading.

In the screenshot below, the drive is formatted with the exFAT file system. How to Format a Drive on a Mac If you want to use a different file system on your USB drive, you’ll need to “format” it.

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Again, formatting a drive will erase it completely, so make sure you have everything backed up that you want to keep. To format a drive on a Mac, you’ll need the built-in Disk Utility application. Press Command+Space to open the Spotlight search dialog, type “Disk Utility”, and press “Enter” to launch the app.