MacBook – External Seagate Hard drive for Mac – Compatibility

disk-formatexternal-diskhard drivemacbook pro

I am looking to purchase a Seagate External Hard Drive for my MacBook Air.

The products claims it works only with PC (windows), however, I have read multiple places that I can just format the drive and it will work fine with a mac.

1) Is this a correct statement. I assume it is but I am new to OSX and like to check.

2) What is the process to format an external drive? (Using OS X 10.9)

Best Answer

As long as the drive connects to your MacBook Air via a connection protocol that the Air supports like Thunderbolt or USB 2 or USB 3 you can format the drive and use it with your Mac just fine.

To format an external hard drive on your Mac (paraphrased from here):

  1. Connect the drive to your Mac
  2. Open Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility
  3. On the left hand side of Disk Utility you'll see a list of drives. Find your external drive and select it.
  4. Select the Erase tab and choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) for the format and give it a name
  5. Press the Erase button to kick off the process. NOTE: This will erase everything currently on the hard drive!
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