If you are going to be working on a Mac computer and using an external hard drive, this is the format you’ll want to go with. The “journaled” part of the format simply refers to a method of storing media on the drive that prevents files from being corrupted in case you accidentally unplug the drive while it’s turned on, or you lose power to the drive while it’s in use.

It’s a great format when working with your external hard drives on your Mac, and will work great with every other Mac user out there. You may have commonly heard this referred to as HFS+ or Hierarchical File System, though the MacOS Extended (Journaled) option is actually an improved version of HFS+. You may be familiar with this option as it is the default option that appears when you go to format a hard drive on your Mac. It is not an ideal choice for your external hard drive, which for many users will be a regular spinning hard drive and not an expensive large solid-state volume. While this all sounds great, remember that APFS was designed for your internal solid-state computer hard drive and your iOS device. Unlike other formats, which require you to wait to basically copy the file a second time, APFS just magically duplicates it right in front of you in a split second. For those of us on laptops with smaller SSDs, this is a huge benefit to using APFS.Īnother great thing about APFS is that it will duplicate your files, even the very large ones, instantaneously. That means if I have a large video file and I duplicate it on my computer, the duplicate doesn’t take up more storage on my computer. One of the great things that APFS does that you will really notice is that it essentially shares data from one file to another. Most modern Mac computers, from your basic MacBook and MacBook Pro to your iMac, iMac Pro, and Mac Mini’s, all have SSDs in them now. While divisive at first, APFS has proven itself to be a powerful drive format for Mac users for a variety of reasons.įirst, APFS was designed with flash storage Solid-State Drives (SSDs) in mind. Upgrading to this operating system forced your computer to completely update the hard drive – making it impossible ever to go backward. Released in March of 2017, APFS was first used on macOS Sierra. So let’s break down each format one by one. With so many options for how you can format a new hard drive, how do you know which option is the right one for you? And moreover, will it even be compatible with your computer? exFAT – Extensible File Allocation Table.HFS – Hierarchical File System, otherwise known as MacOS.Your hard drive can be formatted to many different formats, and each of these formats serves a specific purpose: Have you ever been in the hard drive aisle at the electronics store and wondered, “Hey, will this drive work on my computer?” Worry not! This article will help you better understand what all those drive formats mean and which one is the best drive format for you.

Mac new hard drive file format