External HDD Formatting

[GMSchneider]

After getting my Mini M4 setup with my catalogs opened in Lightroom, I noticed my external HDDs are all formatted NTFS which is read-only on Macs. No big deal, my current drive was almost full, so I was planning on buying a new one. The issue I've come across now is what format I should setup the new drive? I've been doing some searching and I've read conflicting info about APFS formatting on mechanical drives. I have an external SSD enclosure setup which was a cakewalk. Should I just use MacOS Extended since it was designed for HDD? I'm coming from Windows, so I find this part of Macs confusing.

 

[lightandaprayer]

This is a recurring topic on Mac Talk. Fortunately, there is a recent discussion that has some good information about HFS+ and APFS formatting on external HDD vs. SSD volumes. There are also a few external links to relevant info from Apple and Howard Oakley.

When the thread is around 2 weeks old (from today 7/1/25) you will begin to find more helpful info: Mac Photos Format then switch to "flat view."

 

[GMSchneider]

This is a recurring topic on Mac Talk. Fortunately, there is a recent discussion that has some good information about HFS+ and APFS formatting on external HDD vs. SSD volumes. There are also a few external links to relevant info from Apple and Howard Oakley.

When the thread is around 2 weeks old (from today 7/1/25) you will begin to find more helpful info: Mac Photos Format then switch to "flat view."

I took a quick scan of it and I gleamed it was talking about a SSD, but I'll take a closer took. Thanks!

 

[Saint 112]

After getting my Mini M4 setup with my catalogs opened in Lightroom, I noticed my external HDDs are all formatted NTFS which is read-only on Macs. No big deal, my current drive was almost full, so I was planning on buying a new one.

As you say MacOS can read NTFS drives but can't write on them. To do so you need a third party utility. Anyway it's not advised to work on a daily basis on non Apple formatted drives.

Once you have your new one you can use the utility that's bundled with your Mac: Disk Utility. It's in the Applications > Utilities folder.

Chose the drive in the left panel and click on the Erase button (erase is the term for format in Apple parlance). I use the Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format.

Once you have transfered all your data on it you can format your old SSD too.

Nick

 

[NicholasD]

This Joel Feld video provides a nice summary on formatting external drives for the Mac. Relatively basic but does a nice job of explaining differences of different formats. I came across it when new to Macs and found it very helpful.

 

[lightandaprayer]

This is a recurring topic on Mac Talk. Fortunately, there is a recent discussion that has some good information about HFS+ and APFS formatting on external HDD vs. SSD volumes. There are also a few external links to relevant info from Apple and Howard Oakley.

When the thread is around 2 weeks old (from today 7/1/25) you will begin to find more helpful info: Mac Photos Format then switch to "flat view."

I took a quick scan of it and I gleamed it was talking about a SSD, but I'll take a closer took. Thanks!

There is info about SSD and HDD which generally speaking boils down to APFS and HFS+ respectively. But it isn't quite that simple and it is worth learning the differences/benefits of both (which is quicker & easier than you might think).

 

[GMSchneider]

After getting my Mini M4 setup with my catalogs opened in Lightroom, I noticed my external HDDs are all formatted NTFS which is read-only on Macs. No big deal, my current drive was almost full, so I was planning on buying a new one.

As you say MacOS can read NTFS drives but can't write on them. To do so you need a third party utility. Anyway it's not advised to work on a daily basis on non Apple formatted drives.

Once you have your new one you can use the utility that's bundled with your Mac: Disk Utility. It's in the Applications > Utilities folder.

Chose the drive in the left panel and click on the Erase button (erase is the term for format in Apple parlance). I use the Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format.

Once you have transfered all your data on it you can format your old SSD too.

Nick

So I went on Western Digital's website and actually found useful info....they recommend using Mac OS Extended (Journaled) formatting for their external HDDs, so that's the route I'm going.

I already added an external SSD enclosure for more space for apps and LrC catalogs. So far it's a night and day difference in Lightroom exporting time compared to my 8 year old laptop. Who would have thought newer chips were faster?!

 

[Saint 112]

So I went on Western Digital's website and actually found useful info....they recommend using Mac OS Extended (Journaled) formatting for their external HDDs, so that's the route I'm going.

I already added an external SSD enclosure for more space for apps and LrC catalogs. So far it's a night and day difference in Lightroom exporting time compared to my 8 year old laptop. Who would have thought newer chips were faster?!

And especially with the M series chips!

Nick

 

[JPAlbert]

Platter-based hard drives should be in HFS+ whenever possible. That's "Mac OS extended, journaling enabled, GUID partition format" in disk utility.

SSDs can be either HFS+ or APFS (in disk utility that's "APFS, GUID partition format").

The Mac OS requires that SOME drives used in certain situations be APFS.
That includes the internal boot drive, of course.
But also, time machine backups and CarbonCopyCloner and SuperDuper backups, also need to be in APFS.

For general storage on a drive that IS NOT a boot drive, and is NOT used as a backup drive, it's pretty much your choice.

MY choice is to use HFS+ on any and all drives UNLESS the OS requires that I use APFS.

 

[Ellinor William]

APFS is meant for SSDs, not spinning hard drives. It can work on HDDs, but it runs slower, sometimes causes weird hangs, and honestly just isn’t worth it.

What you should do: format your new external HDD as MacOS Extended in Disk Utility. And, move your Lightroom catalogs and photo folders over.

If you ever add another SSD, use APFS for that. Otherwise, stick with MacOS Extended for your spinning drives.

 

[NicholasD]

APFS is meant for SSDs, not spinning hard drives. It can work on HDDs, but it runs slower, sometimes causes weird hangs, and honestly just isn’t worth it.

What you should do: format your new external HDD as MacOS Extended in Disk Utility. And, move your Lightroom catalogs and photo folders over.

If you ever add another SSD, use APFS for that. Otherwise, stick with MacOS Extended for your spinning drives.

I don't disagree with your approach, but I don't think it's quite as black and white as it might seem. One can't configure drives with volumes, only partitions, if drives are formatted in other than APFS. That's a big plus. Newer versions of Mac OS default to APFS for drives dedicated to TimeMachine. I understand that APFS was designed with SSDs in mind and that is certainly the preferred configuration, particularly if the drive will be subject to regular use/frequent read/writes. HDDs used for backups (that might be on a once in 24 hour schedule), don't present as much as a performance risk resulting from fragmentation over time.

I agree with your suggestion to the OP - MacOS extended for mechanical HDDs (and I certainly agree with moving the LR catalog to an external drive - making sure there's working backups). SSDs are the preferred setup but cost and capacity constraints do exist.

Nick

 

[MarshallG]

With any of the last five MacOS’, you should always format your external drives as APFS, unless you need to attach the drive to a Windows computer.

For Mac/Windows interoperability, format as ExFat. But in my experience, this will be slower on the Mac than the APFS.

File system formats available in Disk Utility on Mac

In Disk Utility on your Mac, format disks or volumes using Apple File System (APFS), Mac OS Extended, MS-DOS (FAT), and ExFAT.

support.apple.com

 

[Zeee]

So I went on Western Digital's website and actually found useful info....they recommend using Mac OS Extended (Journaled) formatting for their external HDDs, so that's the route I'm going.

I already added an external SSD enclosure for more space for apps and LrC catalogs. So far it's a night and day difference in Lightroom exporting time compared to my 8 year old laptop. Who would have thought newer chips were faster?!

And especially with the M series chips!

That I how I formatted all my external drives even before I got M chips.

Nick

 

[Ellinor William]

You’re right, APFS can work fine on HDDs for lighter use like backups, and the volume management is nicer on APFS. For something like a Lightroom working drive though, macOS Extended still feels like the safer, simpler route, especially coming from Windows.

 

[RLight]

Spinners should be formatted MacOS Extended which is Allocate on Write (AoW).

Flash storage should be formatted APFS which is Copy on Write (CoW).

You can do CoW on spinners anyways, you just see a substantial performance hit. Example, my WD Red Pro 18TB and Seagate EXOs 18TB can produce 250mb/sec+ in read and write in MacOS Extended. In APFS? Writes in particular fall below 150mb/sec. You've been warned.

Now the opposite is true for flash. Using MacOS Extended in flash based storage results in loss of peak IOPS. Haven't benchmarked it, but it's there.

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