Format External SSD w/APFS

Question

Level 1

61 points

Format External SSD w/APFS

Shortly after upgrading my Mac mini 2018 to Catalina I received a new Sabrent Rocket Pro 2TB NVMe External SSD. I had communicated with another user of this drive who used it with Catalina and had excellent performance, some of which he attributed to formatting it with APFS.

As received the drive came with ExFAT, and seemed to work fine attached via USB-C, though I decided before coping large amounts of data to it, I would reformat with APFS. However when I opened the Disk Utility and attempted to "Erase", APFS was not offered as a choice.

In reading the requirements and recommendations for APFS it seemed it was appropriate for an SSD, internal or external, as long as it was being used with High Sierra 10.13 or later (this will be the case). In searching, I found a thread about changing the Disk Utility View to "All Devices", I did that and tried both the 'Physical Disk' and 'Physical Volume' with the same results, APFS is not offered.

Is there anything I'm missing regarding how to format this drive with APFS? Is there some physical compatibility that it may be missing (which would be odd given the other user's experience)?

Thanks for your consideration

These images show the Disk Utility selections for both Disk and Volume:

Mac mini 2018 or later

Posted on Oct 11, 2019 9:59 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

A07570 Author

Level 1

61 points

Oct 11, 2019 1:17 PM in response to A07570

OK, I figured it out by searching the best "Scheme" to use with Mac OS Extended (Journaled), which was my next best choice, this link recommends GUID. How to erase a disk for Mac - Apple Support

So:

* In "View" I chose "Show All Devices"

* I selected the Physical Disk of my drive (the outside device)

* I clicked on Erase

* I gave it my preferred name

* For "Format" I chose Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

* For "Scheme" I selected "GUID Partition Map"

* I clicked "Erase"

The drive successfully formatted

* I again selected the Physical Disk

* I again gave it my preferred name

* For "Format" I could now chose APFS

* I left "Scheme" as "GUID Partition Map"

* I clicked "Erase"

The drive successfully formatted the Physical disk and created the APFS Container and Volume

So it appears that even though when you choose APFS you're given a choice to select "GUID Partition Map", if you don't already have a GUID Map it won't give you the choice of APFS, the extra format in GUID is required first. I'd also think this solution should work with compatible drives of any type.

Maybe this is documented somewhere else, but if not I hope it helps someone.

Reply

Format External SSD w/APFS

Similar questions