proper format for external hard drive time machine

This will allow Time Machine to store multiple versions of data, which in-turn will allow you to go back in time and recover files before you made any changes to them. To make the best use of Time Machine Backups, the storage capacity of External Drive should at least match the storage capacity of the Hard Drive on your Mac. If the attached Storage Drive is not in the right format, Time Machine will automatically prompt you to Format the Drive. Time Machine can practically backup to any Storage Device connected to USB, Thunderbolt or the FireWire Port of your Mac. External Hard Drive Capacity for Time Machine Backup? If the External Storage Device runs out of space, Time Machine automatically deletes the older backups to create storage space for daily backups. Press Command+Space, type Disk Utility, and press Enter to open it.If enough storage space is available on the External Drive, Time Machine keeps hourly backups for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the past month and weekly backups for all previous months. You’ll need to use the Disk Utility built into your Mac to work with partitions. You can also make the files partition an ExFAT partition, which means you can use it with Windows PCs and practically any other device you can connect an external drive to.

This will ensure your Time Machine backups don’t grow too large, so you’ll always have room for your personal files. Use one for Time Machine backups and another for your personal files. The ideal way to do this is to create separate partitions on the external drive. RELATED: What's the Difference Between APFS, Mac OS Extended (HFS+), and ExFAT? A Better Option: Create Separate Partitions for Backups and Files Time Machine will also work toward filling up the entire drive, not leaving extra room for your files.

Bear in mind that Time Machine requires the drive be formatted with the Mac’s HFS+ file system, which means you won’t be able to easily access these files on Windows PCs or anything else that isn’t a Mac.

Proper format for external hard drive time machine