

- #What is the best external hard drive for macbook air mac os
- #What is the best external hard drive for macbook air mac
I know you prefer to just have it mailed to her, but testing it on your Mac might allow you to smooth the path for your Mom.
#What is the best external hard drive for macbook air mac os
You could eliminate that issue if you were to go ahead and format the drive as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) on your system before sending it on to Mom. Next, select the 'General' tab when the Finder preferences window appears on your Mac screen. The big issue is that you need to let your Mom know that is to be expected, since it may offer up the reminder that this will erase the drive (and that seems scary). Once you are able to do it, follow the below steps to show the hard drive on a Mac desktop: Go to the Menu bar, and then, move to 'Finder'.

Time Machine should offer, if the drive is formatted in one of those two formats, offer to reformat it for use with Time Machine.

NTFS is more problematical, as the Mac will read it but won't (without add on software) write to the drive. It's prime benefit is that both Mac and Windows machine can read and write to the drive. The Mac can read and write FAT32, though it's not optimal and the format doesn't accept files > 4 GB. If it's not marketed specifically for Macs, it will come formatted either FAT32 or NTFS. However you will need to worry about the format of the drive. I've used Seagate and Western Digital externals, as well as some from OWC. (We've tested SSDs and platter-based drives alike. But if you bypass those you should be fine. This post contains a collection of the Best External Hard Drives For Macbook Air available on the market. Looking to add storage, or for a smart way to back up your Mac Here's what you need to know, along with our top-rated Apple-friendly drives. I've had no real problems with different externals, though there are reports of issues with recent Toshiba externals.
