Mac computers, whether you have an iMac, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, or another Mac device, all have a finite amount of space. How you use it depends how quickly, or not, that space fills up and whether you need to add more space — either internally (such as upgrading to an SSD), or connecting to one or more external hard drives.
One thing you may not know is that the Mac boot drive is already partitioned. In all fairly recent models, the boot drive contains a secret partition that includes the macOS Recovery System, some essential Mac first aid tools and an installer, should, for any reason, your macOS fail to install or reboot.
Mac Os x How To Erase & Format A Brand New SSD SATA Hard Drive! 3 26 2018 Intro Designed by Joseph Hung Outro Designed by Jason. MacOS High Sierra: Why you can't format an internal SSD with HFS+ format. (APFS) format that Apple adopted for both iOS and—with macOS 10.13 High Sierra—for SSDs that are a Mac's boot volume.
Before we go into how to partition a Mac hard drive or SSD, let's consider the benefits, and what you would need to do before partitioning a hard drive.
Benefits of making a partition in a Mac hard drive
One of the main reasons for implementing a partition is to run more than one operating system, such as macOS on one and Windows on the other. Or you can run two versions of the same OS in both sides of the partition, all from a single disk. Each disk drive, with its own volume, is found and treat separately in the Finder.
Once you know how to partition a hard drive on Mac, or how to partition an external hard drive on Mac, you can format and manage them separately, effectively giving you two computers within one. Although, if you want to use the other volume to run an earlier version of your Mac — which you can, using Time Machine, the volume for that side has to be twice as large as the space it requires.
What to do before partitioning a hard drive
Before going ahead with a partition, it's always useful to tidy your Mac up. Most users find they have way more clutter and junk than they think. Between old folders and documents, images and videos, apps taking up space, hundreds of email attachment downloads and local iOS backups, many people find they have at least 62GB of junk they simply don't need. We recommend downloading CleanMyMac X, a powerful Mac cleaner, ideal for decluttering your Mac before creating a partition.
How to partition a hard drive or SSD on Mac
There are several ways this can be done.
1. Use Boot Camp
How to download apps on a mac computer. Casino online portugal. Boot Camp is especially useful if you want to run Windows on your Mac. With Boot Camp comes Boot Camp Assistant, a handy app for partitioning your hard drive space so that one disk drive can run and operate macOS, and the other, Windows.
Following the on-screen instructions of this Mac app, you can partition your hard drive or SSD space to ensure that Windows will run smoothly on your Mac, almost as if it was operating on a native Windows PC or other device.
However, for those who don't want to partition Mac for that purpose, you can use Disk Utility.
2. Use Disk Utility
Disk Utility is another Mac application that will repair and, as needed, partition disk drive spaces.
As a Mac partition manager, it is a useful app that sits within your Utilities folder, inside your Applications folder.
Before starting a Mac partition exercise, it's worth fully backing-up the folder you want to copy using Carbon Copy Cloner. Another useful tool that gives you an instantly bootable copy of the drive you are going to partition, working on the assumption that if anything goes wrong during this process, you are going to lose everything that is on that hard drive. So with a backup, nothing can go wrong, and if it does, you can easily fix it. https://glen.over-blog.com/2021/02/whatsize-6-3-1-download-free.html.
Before partitioning:
- Clone the drive.
- Make sure the clone has worked and with your cloned drive you can boot this up from the startup menu.
- Plug the clone in and go to System Preferences > Startup Disk.
- Check the cloned drive works, and then you can partition without any worries.
Now you are ready to partition hard drive on Mac, starting with the following:
- Press Command-Shift-U or go to Utilities in the Applications folder.
- Double-click the Disk Utility application.
- In Disk Utility, select your Mac's internal drive (or an internal SSD).
- You should see two options: First Aid or Partition.
- Click Partition.
- Click the ‘+' below Partition Layout.
- Now a new Partition will appear, and you can change the size according to what you need.
- Give this new drive a name.
- If it hasn't worked exactly as you want, you can always click Revert to unpartition hard drive on Mac.
- Or, once you are happy with the size, click Apply. You may also be asked to click a lock symbol in the bottom left-hand corner to confirm everything.
https://rsmy.over-blog.com/2021/02/n64-games-for-mac-emulator.html. But don't worry if you want to make changes down the road. Everything you have done is reversible, so you can change the size or repartition hard drive on Mac.
Once the partition is done (which doesn't take as long as you might imagine) you will have a completely new hard drive or internal SSD, identical to your original, except without anything in it. Upload anything you need, or use the cloned version to store everything that was in the original hard drive - which still exists - in this partitioned version.
Within Disk Utility, you have the option of increasing or decreasing the size, erasing altogether (just remember to backup anything you need first), which will restore the space lost in the partition to your primary hard drive. Always backup before making any changes to a partition.
And remember, before making a partition, clean up your Mac from all the junk it contains. The fastest and the safest way to do that is to use CleanMyMac X. Try it today to rid your system of unwanted files and enjoy improved performance.
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These instructions only apply to Mac computers with an Intel processor.
Erasing your Mac deletes all of its files permanently, so make sure you make a backup of any files that you want to keep. If you're attempting to restore your Mac to factory settings, first find out what to do before you sell, give away or trade in your Mac.
Start up from macOS Recovery
Turn on your Mac, then immediately press and hold these two keys until you see an Apple logo or other image: Command (⌘) and R. You may then be asked to select a user you know the password for. Select the user, then click Next and enter their administrator password.
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Use Disk Utility to erase your disk
- From the utilities window in macOS Recovery, select Disk Utility and click Continue.
- Select Macintosh HD in the sidebar of Disk Utility. Can't see Macintosh HD?
- Click the Erase button in the toolbar, then enter the requested details:
- Name: continue to use Macintosh HD as the name or enter a different name.
- Format: continue to use APFS or Mac OS Extended (Journalled), as recommended by Disk Utility.
- Click Erase Volume Group. If you can't see this button, click Erase instead.
- If Find My is turned on for this Mac, you may be asked to enter your Apple ID to authorise the erase process. Forgotten your Apple ID?
- After the erase process has been completed, select any other internal volumes that may be listed in the sidebar, then click the delete volume (–) button in the toolbar to delete each volume.
You don't need to delete the Macintosh HD volume you've just erased, or any external volumes or disk images. - Quit Disk Utility to return to the utilities window.
- If you want to start up again from the disk you've erased, you should now reinstall macOS on that disk.
If you can't see Macintosh HD in Disk Utility
Your built-in startup disk should be the first item listed in the Disk Utility sidebar. It's called Macintosh HD unless you've changed its name. If you can't see it there, choose Apple menu > Shut Down, then unplug all non-essential devices from your Mac and try again.
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If your disk still doesn't appear in Disk Utility or Disk Utility reports that the erase process has failed, your Mac may need a service. Best hard drive for mac 2015. If you need help, please contact Apple Support.
Learn more
For more information about using Disk Utility, see the Disk Utility User Guide.
