'The optimum choice is to format it ExFAT, but do so on the PC, not the Mac. Alternatively, you can make two partitions - one for the Mac; one for the PC. Partition the drive using GUID when you make the two partitions. Format one using Mac OS Extended, Journaled. Check out Seagate 2TB Backup Plus Ultra Slim (Gold) USB 3.0 External Hard Drive for PC/Mac. External Hard Disks; ›; Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Slim USB 3.0 External Hard Drive for PC/Mac with Seagate 2. Click to open expanded view.

Table of Contents • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Before we Begin It is worth understanding that there are four main products in the Backup Plus range of external hard drives. Here is a comparison table detailing what your options are for the file systems installed on the Seagate Backup Plus drive when you buy. Backup Plus File System Format Ultra Slim NTFS Slim NTFS or HFS+ Portable NTFS or HFS+ Backup Plus Fast 4TB NTFS You’ll observe from the table above that the Backup Plus external drives can be purchased with either NTFS or HFS+ file systems pre installed. The Backup Plus Ultra Slim and Fast 4TB are provided with NTFS file systems only. What is a file system format and why is it important? It is the software layout of the external hard drive that allows the Mac to see, understand and read from and write to the drive.

NTFS is the file system understood and written to by a Windows PC. Macs can see an file system, read the file system but cannot write to it. HFS+, which is also known as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) file system, is the file system Macs use. It is important to know which file system you have preinstalled as this has a bearing on how you go about using the external drive on your Mac.

All the Backup Plus external drives support USB 3.0 connections and read and write speeds (up to 5 Gbits/s minus USB protocol overheads). Depending on which kind and type of drive you purchase they are available in 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, 4TB and 5TB capacity options.

If you would like to read further details on the Seagate Backup Plus range of external drives Seagate Backup Plus Connection to your Mac Once you understand what you have, the next thing you’ll want to do is connect your Seagate Backup Plus to your Mac. Let me tell you a bit about USB cables. Cables are known by types. The size and shape of the connection and the USB standard they support.

The cable for the Backup Plus drives are USB 3.0 cables with a type A connection on the end that goes into the Mac and a type B Micro USB that goes into the Backup Plus drive. New Drive Icon On Desktop Note: Your drive may not say Untitled, what is written under the drive would depend on which drive was purchased. Read on and look at the options you have for using the Seagate Backup Plus on Mac. How to Use Seagate Backup Plus Slim for Mac Remember earlier I talked about file systems formats? Here is where that information is now important.

Free download movie editor for mac. Let’s have a look at a scenario where you have purchased the ‘for Mac’ version of the Backup Plus Slim or indeed Portable and the drive has a HFS+ file system on it. HFS+ is also known as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) file system and that is how you will see it referred to on the Mac. I will cover NTFS formatted drives in the next section of this article. Assuming you’re happy to have the whole drive available to use to drag and drop files to or to use the whole drive for Time Machine backups on your Mac you are good to go. Your Mac understands HFS+ directly and you can use your drive directly. Jump down to my section on Drag and Drop or the section on setting up Time Machine to use your drive. Should you want to both things, i.e.

Have a part of the drive where you can copy files to and assuming the Backup Plus drive is large enough to do your Time Machine backups, then you will need to format and partition the Seagate Backup Plus. Don’t worry it is easy to do and you should have it cracked in well under 15 minutes. Skip down to later in this article and take a look at the section Format and Partition Seagate Backup Plus on Mac How to Use Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Slim on a Mac And for that matter any of the Backup Plus drives that are purchased as NTFS formatted, whether that is the Slim, Portable or Fast 4TB. Mac OS will see the drive is connected but the drive will not be writable on a Mac without a little effort. There are several ways to go about being able to see and write to the Backup Plus drive. It is worth having a think about how you plan to use the Seagate Backup Plus external drives on a Mac before you decide.