Most of the time, when you connect an external hard drive to your mac s usb port, you soon see it mount on the desktop. I discovered that because i was worried about the cd being permanently stuck in the drive. How to free up storage space on your mac apple support. When you connect an external drive directly to your mac, you might be asked if you want to use the drive to back up with time machine.
It can also unmount them for you when your mac goes to sleep, and thats handy for macbook owners who. If you have a disk already mounted and your system goes to sleep, it also powers down ports, including usb ports. How to use toshiba external hard drive on mac solved. Apples mac lineup consists of macbook, macbook air, macbook pro, imac, mac pro, and. I had no issues taking files from my external hard drive and transferring them to my new macbook air.
The best thunderbolt 3 ssd and hard drives for your macbook. How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac. Tips to fix mac doesnt recognize external hard drive on. How to find an external drive that is not showing up on mac. This option on boot trick works for quite literally any boot volume, whether its an external usb drive of any sort, a thunderbolt hard drive, boot dvd, cd, the recovery partition, even in dualboot environments with other versions of os x, or a linux or a windows partition with boot camp, if its bootable and connected to the mac it will be visible at this boot manager. Western digital my passport ultra features cloud storage and 256aes encryption.
Sep 17, 2019 right click on your toshiba external hard drive icon and pick get info from the menu. The 8 best external hard drives and ssds for mac and pc users. Use external storage devices with mac apple support. This small compact ssd drive from samsung comes with both a usbc to usbc cable and a usbc to usba, meaning its perfect to use with your macbook or mac. However, making your storage device mac compatible, and even cross compatible with macs and pcs, is as simple as reformatting the drive. Usually, when you plug the external device into your mac, it appears as an icon on the desktop or can be found on the sidebar in finder. Its fast 540 mbs read and write speeds are more than enough to transfer any file. Desktop external hard drives usually run at 7200 rpm to offer all the speed they can. How to fix external drive not showing up on macbook pro air.
Drive speed is measured in revolutions per minute rpm, based on how fast the drive can spin. There are many options you can choose between, such as hard drive, usb flash drive and many others. Usb c typec ultra slim external dvd drive burneroptical drive cd rw dvd rw superdrive disc duplicator compatible with mac macbook pro air imac and laptop 3. Get a free addition to setapp the ultimate mac user book. Macbook air retina, inch, 2018 2019 macbook air 11inch, early 2015 macbook pro 16inch, 2019.
Western digital my book studio 3tb front, left angled, marble table. Apple likes to ensure these are easy to find, so they also appear in the finder in the lefthand column under devices, since mac s treat them the same way as. But, if you are using macbook air then hard drive must be formatted with a file system your mac can support. Available only on mac computers that have the apple t2 security chip, startup security utility offers three features to help secure your mac against unauthorized access. Assuming, tomorrow, something turns out badly with your mac or in the event that it gets stolen or harmed, supplanting the equipment itself. Discover the world of external hard drives for mac. Click the go menu and navigate to your home folder. Highlight your drive and click partition in disk utility. To see storage information about your mac, click the apple menu in the topleft of your screen. The macbook air superdrive has unique firmware which prevents it from being properly recognized as a plug and play optical usb drive by windows. The best external hard drives for mac in 2020 pcmag. Most of the time, when you connect an external hard drive to your macs usb port, you soon see it mount on the desktop. Storage devices such as external hard drives can also be available.
To see the size of a specific file or folder, click it once and then press commandi. Im using the apple external cd drive, so no other cable to try. Apr 15, 2020 this is a great external hard drive for your mac if you are concerned about keeping your data safe and secure. Macbook air inch, early 2015 2017 macbook air 11inch, early 2015 macbook pro 16inch, 2019. There are several reasons why your mac wont recognize a drive. Best external hard drive for 2011 macbook apple community. External hard drive macbook air retina, inch, 2018. I can connect remotely to the hardrive which is connected to my home network via airport extreme, however its not ideal. Oct 07, 2019 save space by storing your content in icloud or using builtin tools to find and remove large or unneeded files. Mar 10, 2019 connect an external drive to your mac via usb, usbc, or thunderbolt.
This reduced power draw helps preserve the battery life of the mac you plug the drive into. Move your photos library to save space on your mac apple. How to use macbook air superdrive dvd drive on windows pcs. Find out which hard drive can help increase your storage or safely back up your mac. Macbook air, macbook pro, imac, mac pro, and mac mini. Here are eight external hard drives for mac users to consider. Jan 18, 2017 the best backup for mac computer to external hard drive. Most modern mac laptops except for the macbook air have a dvdr drive, which makes it easy to send up to 8. For time machine backups, its good to use a drive that has at least twice the storage capacity of your mac. Buying an external hard drive for your mac is not all that different from buying one for your windows pc, except for one very important complication.
Mar 12, 2015 a threeyear warranty is the best you can expect from a consumergrade external drive from a top vendor. The value of time wasted by an unreliable product is much higher than the price of the product itself, you may also lose a valuable disc. External dvd drive not working postmojav apple community. So for your easy convenience, i offer you potential clues to fix external hard disk missing on mac desktop. Open the disk utility app and highlight your external hard drive.
Many storage devices such as usb drives and external hard disk drives come preformatted in ntfs because a larger number of consumers are using them on pcs. I do not want to erase my external hard drive as it has many many files on it from computers past. Note that the drive bears the firewire symbol as an icon, marking it as an external drive. It is compatible with macbook, macbook air, macbook pro, imac or mac mini via a single usb cable to help read dvdcd and write to cdr and dvdr discs. Heres what you need to know, along with our toprated applefriendly drives. Choose the best external hard drive for your mac or ios. If you dont know it by now, upgrading the ssd in the macbook or imac youre buying will cost you a fortune a lot more than it would to buy an. Aug 02, 2018 mac doesnt recognize external hard drive anymore and why your mac is not mounting or wont detect specific popular brand drives including seagate, wd, toshiba, iomega, lacie, and exfat.
Macbook air inch, early 2015 2017 macbook air 11inch, early 2015 macbook pro inch, 2020. How to use photos for mac with an external hard drive imore. And if you have a mac mini, external drives could be ideal. Apples usb superdrive is the mac external hard drive designed to complement macbook pro air. Jun 22, 20 this option on boot trick works for quite literally any boot volume, whether its an external usb drive of any sort, a thunderbolt hard drive, boot dvd, cd, the recovery partition, even in dualboot environments with other versions of os x, or a linux or a windows partition with boot camp, if its bootable and connected to the mac it will be visible at this boot manager. When i attach the drive to my macbook air s usb port, and put a cd in the drive, the cd icon does not appear on the desktop. Dec 11, 2018 commonly when you want to connect an external hard drive to laptop or computer all you need to do is just plug and play thats it. Learn how to move your photos library to another drive to save space on your mac. How to transfer files from macbook air on apple community. Jul 18, 2018 they say while they are trying to connect external usb hard disk with macbook pro, mac book air, imac or macmini then disk utility doesnt show up external drive icon on the desktop. An encrypted backup is accessible only to users with the password. How to use seagate external hard drive on mac, 16 ways.
If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide. How to format external disk for macbook a apple community. Feb 08, 2020 how to partition an external hard drive on mac. Meanwhile, imacs, mac pros, mac minis, and the entrylevel macbook air all still. How to connect external hard drive to macbook pro wikihow. External drives are perfect tools to store information and protect from various cyber threats.
Dont worry, apply my task, im sure that you will get rid of on this issue. If you think youll need an external drive mostly for bluray discs, most of them will also play dvds and cds but are not readablewritable. How to backup mac to an external hard drive 5 steps. Optimized storage in macos sierra and later can save space by storing your content in icloud and making it available on demand. When storage space is needed, files, photos, movies, email attachments, and other files that you seldom. On your macbook air, within the remote disc window, doubleclick on the name of the mac that has the media drive. Your first step to using your toshiba external drive on your mac is to plug your toshiba drive in. Jan 17, 2018 how to make external hard drive work with mac and pc set up guidehow to use hdhow to use hd duration. External storage for macbook air my macbook air has such little storage, that ive been forced to move all my photosmusicbig files onto an external storage drive. If you want to make use of your mac s thunderbolt port, then this is the best external hard drive for macs. Choose the best external hard drive for your mac or. The 8 best external hard drives and ssds for mac and pc users in. Macbook, macbook air, and macbook pro models with usbc ports require a usbc to usb adapter sold separately to use apple usb superdrive.
If youve recently upgraded to a new imac or macbook pro, youre probably going to need an optical drive if you want to continue importing your movies and music to itunes, or just access the content on your discs. Buying an external hard drive for your mac is not all that different from buying one for. Compare portable, usb and external hard drive models for office and home and shop online. Best mac hard drives 2020 here are the best mac hard drives and external storage options in 2020. Nov 14, 2019 get a free addition to setapp the ultimate mac user book. After you plug in an external drive, mac os x displays it just like any other hard drive volume. Having the best external hard drive or ssd for your mac or pc is. How to open an external drive thats not showing on mac. Select encrypt backup disk recommended, then click use as backup disk. If you see the drive is ntfs then youll either need to reformat the drive or use a ntfs driver. When you wake your mac up, for whatever reason, your external drive does not wake up. Fortunately, apple provides the drivers for running windows on a mac, as part of its bootcamp software.
Prepare your drive you can store your library on an external storage device, such as a usb or thunderbolt drive formatted as apfs or mac os extended journaled. Maxone 1tb ultra slim portable external hard drive hdd usb 3. Best external hard drives for macs in 2020 techradar. But buying an external hard drive isnt necessarily that simple.
Dec 03, 2018 to be included in this list, each drive must have at least 1tb of storage, connect directly to a mac via a single usbc cable, support usb 3. Lacie mobile drive 2tb external hard drive hdd moon silver usbc usb 3. The apple usb superdrive is compatible with mac models from 2008 and later that dont have a builtin optical drive. However, i cannot download the photos i just added from the macbook air to my external hard drive. How to cope with just 128gb of ssd storage on your mac. Meanwhile, imacs, mac pros, mac minis, and the entrylevel macbook air all still come with usb 3. The best external hard drives for mac in 2019 forbes. Lacie 2tb mobile drive external hard drive usbc usb 3.