APFS on external drive missing from Disk Utility

apfsdisk-utilityexternal-diskfilesystem

When I use Disk Utility app in macOS Mojave to format an external drive, I do not see the new Apple File System (APFS) offered as a choice of format.

Does it matter that my external drive is a Toshiba Canvio® Advance Portable External Hard Drive plugged into a MacBook Pro Retina (late 2013) via USB-3 cable? I know APFS is optimized for solid-state storage, so does Disk Utility not offer it for a spinning-metal disk drive?

➥ Why is APFS not offered by Disk Utility?

Best Answer

Edit:

The problem is, that DiskUtil only shows you the Volumes on already partitioned disks. Just select View -> Show all devices. Now instead of the Volume select the device you want to partition and APFS and GUID will be offered.

I was able to get the APFS and GUID scheme option by deleting the MBR

  1. Open a Terminal
  2. Find out which disk is your target: diskutil list
  3. Unmount the disk: diskutil umountDisk /dev/disk# with # being the number of the drive you determined in step 1 (e.g. /dev/disk2)
  4. Delete the MBR: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/disk# bs=512 count=1

If you open DiskUtil now you will be offered APFS

Disclaimer

  • Be aware that you are deleting all partitions from the drive
  • Be careful when selecting the disk
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