How to CREATE VOLUMES and PARTITIONS on an External Hard Drive using Disk Utility on a MAC

[@rogerbeltz2370]

The most thorough, comprehensive tutorial that I have ever seen. You have essentially "left no questions unanswered" in regard to Formatting, Partitioning and Creating Volumes in an Mac environment. Thanks much for sharing your expertise my friend.

[@Learnwithjoel]

I really appreciate you and your kind words @rogerbeltz2370! I'm so glad my content was able to answer all of your questions! Thank you for your continued support! I appreciate you more than you know! If this video was useful, I’d love for you to SHARE it with on social media and say how it helped you!

[@kirkydaturkey]

Simply THE BEST. Thank you Joel. You touched on all of the additional situations that I've been confused about. Other people would break this up into separate videos, and I got lost just trying to find something that addresses it all.

[@blunderbus3702]

Joel, you are an excellent educator, this video is concise, comprehensive. Thank you for taking the time to produce this video.

[@Learnwithjoel]

I appreciate you and your kind words @blunderbus3702! THANK YOU so much for watching! It is appreciated more than you know! If this video was useful, I’d love for you to SHARE it with on social media and say how it helped you! Please SUBSCRIBE if you haven’t already, and if you have, THANK YOU for your continued support!

[@mk1cortinatony395]

I was really struggling with the concept of partitions and volumes. This was just what I needed. Thanks!

[@Learnwithjoel]

I certainly hope this helps you @MK1 Cortina Tony! Thanks so much for watching! If this video was helpful and you learned something new, please SUBSCRIBE to my channel if you haven’t already! If you want to support my content click THANKS below or better yet, SHARE it with a friend on social media and say how it helped you! It helps more than you know and is greatly appreciated!

[@gergemall]

It’s a great tutorial ❤

[@chrisweppler1977]

Great video, Joel! You made this stuff SO easy to understand for a person who's not "technically inclined."

[@Learnwithjoel]

I appreciate you and your kind words @chrisweppler1977! I do my best to try to cover topic from multiple perspectives. Thank you for your continued support! I appreciate you more than you know! If this video was useful, I’d love for you to SHARE it with on social media and say how it helped you!

[@AdventuresInTheSky]

Best video for explaining partition vs volumes. Volumes with APFS rocks! Have an SSD and one volume for Time Machine and one volume for general storage and Time Machine can use whatever space it needs to do its thing as time goes on. Great job APPLE.

[@Learnwithjoel]

I appreciate you and your kind words @AdventuresInTheSky! Thank you so much for taking your time to watch this video. It is greatly appreciated! If this video has been beneficial, I would be honored if you would consider sharing it with your social media network and expressing your gratitude for its assistance. Kindly subscribe if you have not already done so. Your continued support is greatly appreciated.

[@cryptochris247]

Great explanation. Exactly what i needed for using the same hard drive to back up multiple laptops. Thank you!

[@weldonf4081]

Excellent tutorial!! Now I understand containers and volumes. Thanks for creating such a clear and understanding video.

[@Learnwithjoel]

I appreciate you and your kind words @weldonf4081! I'm happy this was helpful! Thank you for your continued support! I appreciate you more than you know! If this video was useful, I’d love for you to SHARE it with on social media and say how it helped you!

[@cmbakir]

This video is an excellent video where you can find all the answers you are looking for on this subject ,Thanks

[@Learnwithjoel]

Thank you for your kind words @cmbakir! I appreciate you more than you know! Thank you for your continued support! If this video was useful, I’d love for you to SHARE it with on social media and say how it helped you!

[@DoctorLo0p]

The International System of Units (SI) denotes (exa) as a multiplication by the sixth power of 1000 or 1018. In other words, 1 exabyte (EB) = 1018bytes = 1,0006bytes = 1000000000000000000 bytes = 1,000 petabytes = 1 million terabytes = 1 billion gigabytes. To put this into better perspective, You could fit 11 million movies in 4K format would fit comfortably inside a 1 EB storage device. To get to just a single EB would take 763 billion floppy disks or 1.5 billion CD-ROM discs, In the end data centers and large-scale computing environments that mainly use EB. (Hope this satisfies anyones curiosity)

[@Learnwithjoel]

I appreciate the detailed info @DoctorLo0p! I'm sure it will help someone! THANK YOU so much for watching! It is appreciated more than you know! If this video was useful, I’d love for you to SHARE it with on social media and say how it helped you! Please SUBSCRIBE if you haven’t already, and if you have, THANK YOU for your continued support!

[@watchaddicts1213]

Excellent job! You're a very good (and thorough) teacher. Thank you.

[@Learnwithjoel]

Thank you for the kind words @watchaddicts1213! I appreciate you and your support! Thanks so much for watching! If this video was helpful and you learned something new, please SUBSCRIBE to my channel if you haven’t already! If you want to support my content click THANKS below or better yet, SHARE it with a friend on social media and say how it helped you! It helps more than you know and is greatly appreciated!

[@pixienix]

this is everything I was looking for! thanks for going into detail and touching upon the differences!!

[@michaeljohnson112]

I cant tell you how much I love your attention to detail (makes my computing OCD happy), this has bee a great overview of partitions and volumes. I've been racking my brain on how to set up my "Travel" SSD for my Work/DJ laptop, and this has made me change my tune from 2 partitions to just running volumes on ATFS. I've been trying to decide the best way to have a "travel" backup on one section, and then my Music and DJ related files on another section to create some redundancy for worst case DJ issues. Are their any disadvantages of assigning a volume to a Time Machine backup as opposed to leaving in the main area and just giving it a max size for backups? I'm going to start searching your other videos as well, but if you have a clip that specifically discusses this let me know where and I will jump on that!

[@Learnwithjoel]

I appreciate the kind words @michaeljohnson112! As far as assigning a volume to a Time Machine backup...my personal preference/recommendation is to dedicate one drive to Time Machine only and nothing else. If you have it partitioned or have multiple volumes with other content on there and it's the backup, if something happens to the drive, there goes your backup and your files. It kinds defeats the purpose of a local backup. Hope all is well with the DJing! Thank you for your continued support! I appreciate you more than you know! If this video was useful, I’d love for you to SHARE it with on social media and say how it helped you!

[@NewDawnBreakingMoon]

Suuuuper helpful! very straight forward and easy to understand. Thank you!

[@Learnwithjoel]

You're very welcome @NewDawnBreakingMoon! Thank you for your continued support! I appreciate you more than you know! If this video was useful, I’d love for you to SHARE it with on social media and say how it helped you!

[@simonmorris8651]

Thanks so much Joel, really clearly and simply explained with great graphics. It really helped me set up and partition my new ScanDisk SSD bought to use as back-up for my MacBook Air. I also liked the extra tip for labelling the desktop icons for my drive 👍👌👏

[@Learnwithjoel]

You're very welcome @simonmorris8651! I appreciate you and your kind words! THANK YOU so much for watching! It is appreciated more than you know! If this video was useful, I’d love for you to SHARE it with on social media and say how it helped you! Please SUBSCRIBE if you haven’t already, and if you have, THANK YOU for your continued support!

[@jonnyroberts5545]

perfectly explained thanks!

[@tingfungchan3465]

Very informative, thanks!

[@Learnwithjoel]

You're very welcome @tingfungchan3465! THANK YOU so much for watching! It is appreciated more than you know! If this video was useful, I’d love for you to SHARE it with on social media and say how it helped you! Please SUBSCRIBE if you haven’t already, and if you have, THANK YOU for your continued support!

[@Harshikaj]

This is such an amazing video. So helpful!! But still I have a question, what's the exact need of creating partition or volume? I don't think.

[@aftabjaved]

thanks you were grate. learn a lot. made very confident

[@alexxmsk]

Hello everyone! Please help me with one deal that happens in my case. I have SSD2TB@APFS one of Volumes for Time Machine for MacBook. How can I move this TM_volume from this SSD2TB@APFS to another SSD@APFS??? This TM contain the first copies of my MacBook.

[@Learnwithjoel]

Hi @alexxmsk! I would think your best bet would be to clone the hard drive. I know Disk utility can do this or other third party software like Carbon Copy. I'll link some articles and software links below: Restore a disk image to a disk using Disk Utility on Mac support.apple.com/guide/disk-utility/restore-a-disk-image-to-a-disk-dskutl14078/22.6/mac/15.2 Carbon Copy Cloner bombich.com I'm almost certain you can no longer just plug two drives in and drag to copy. It does something weird with the permissions, although that can probably be changed, I just haven't troubleshooted that in a very long time. What's interesting is I did find an old Apple Support article that was removed by Apple that does talk about transferring TM backups to another disk, but who knows the age of it and if the method is still supported. Transfer Time Machine backups from one backup disk to another web.archive.org/web/20210226200806/support.apple.com/en-ca/HT202380 I would think your best bet is to clone the drive. Carbon Copy is great! Thank you so much for taking your time to watch this video! If it was helpful or you learned something new, please SUBSCRIBE to my channel if you haven’t already! If you want to support the content I make, click THANKS at the top, or better yet, SHARE it with a friend on social media and say how it helped you! Your support helps more than you know and is greatly appreciated!

[@artmagenta5091]

Brilliant explanation. Thank you)🙂

[@Learnwithjoel]

You're very welcome @Art Magenta! Thanks so much for watching! If this video was helpful and you learned something new, please SUBSCRIBE to my channel if you haven’t already! If you want to support my content click THANKS below or better yet, SHARE it with a friend on social media and say how it helped you! It helps more than you know and is greatly appreciated!

[@mthrdr]

Outstanding video! You just got a new subscriber sir.

[@Learnwithjoel]

Thank you for your continued support @mmctro! I appreciate you more than you know! If this video was useful, I’d love for you to SHARE it with on social media and say how it helped you!

[@Grandit-01]

Great video. Glad I found you, My questions:. I want to use one LaCie external drive to back up 2 iMacs with Time Machine, both iMacs are using Sequoia. Is it possible? And if so, should I partition the LaCie drive or should I create 2 volumes? I guess the third question is - is this a terrible idea? (I also use a time capsule for backup but wanted to create another backup that I will occasionally use in case the Time Capsule goes bust).

[@Learnwithjoel]

Great question @Grandit-01! One external drive can be used to back up multiple Macs. In the root directory it will just have the name of each Mac that is being backed up, so they will be independent from one another. I honestly wouldn't make any partition or volume. Don't over complicate it. Just dedicate the drive to Time Machine for the Macs and plug in when needed! Thank you so much for taking your time to watch this video. It is greatly appreciated! If this video has been helped you, I would be honored if you would consider sharing it with your social media network and expressing your gratitude for its assistance. Kindly subscribe if you have not already done so. Your continued support is greatly appreciated.

[@DiscoCitizens240]

Excellent video. How do I resize a partition? The ‘partition’ option in disk utility is greyed out

[@Learnwithjoel]

Hi @Silvermoon500! That's one of the downfalls of partitions...once it's created, it's not flexible. It can't be changed. If you wanted it bigger or smaller, you need to delete the portion and create a new one. So just keep in mind if you need to do that, make sure you content is saved someplace else as everything would get deleted on that partition. THANK YOU so much for watching! It is appreciated more than you know! If this video was useful, I’d love for you to SHARE it with on social media and say how it helped you! Please SUBSCRIBE if you haven’t already, and if you have, THANK YOU for your continued support!

[@DiscoCitizens240]

Thanks so much

[@craigsmith1948]

I have just purchased a 8tb external hard drive. I also have 5 external hard drive connected to my Mac mini. I would like to move all external hard drive onto the 8tb drive and unplug all the drives. Which should you recommend "partition or volume"? Some to the drives are APSF and some are Mac OS Extended. I would like to make them all Mac OS Extended will that mess up the files when I change formats? Thank you for all your expert videos.

[@Learnwithjoel]

Hi @craigsmith1948! So remember volumes can expand and partitions are set in stone. I would also really think about do you really need to segregate the files on the one main drive? Don't over complicate it. I personally would do volumes over partitions, but only if you really want to separate the files for whatever reason. Also keep in mind that if you want them all to be the same formats, that will require re-formatting which means wiping the contents and starting over, so just make sure you have a backup! Thank you for your continued support. Your appreciation is deeply valued! If this video has proven beneficial, I would be honored if you could share it on social media and express your gratitude for its assistance.

[@sfetcucristian2949]

Very clear. thank you

[@Learnwithjoel]

You're very welcome @sfetcucristian2949. I appreciate the kind words! THANK YOU so much for watching! It is appreciated more than you know! If this video was useful, I’d love for you to SHARE it with on social media and say how it helped you! Please SUBSCRIBE if you haven’t already, and if you have, THANK YOU for your continued support!

[@Zumaray]

Thanks for providing a great video. I'm curious though about reinstalling my Mac OS onto a hybrid drive? Should I see both drives? Or just one drive? I'm assuming that the SSD part of it should have the OS on it?

[@Learnwithjoel]

That is a fantastic question @Zumaray! I do not have any Hybrid drives to test this on! Regardless, I would think if you make a volume, you should be able to install the macOS on it. I actually have just a regular SSD split into different volumes that I have a handful of older macOS installed on it for troubleshooting and fun. Maybe someone else has played with hybrid drives? Comment if you have! THANK YOU so much for watching! It is appreciated more than you know! If this video was useful, I’d love for you to SHARE it with on social media and say how it helped you! Please SUBSCRIBE if you haven’t already, and if you have, THANK YOU for your continued support!

[@Zumaray]

@@Learnwithjoel I have done some research and found that it should be recognising the hard drive as a Fusion Drive. I shouldn’t have been seeing the separate drives. I have since fixed this following the steps to unite them again. But thanks again. Your video was very educational for me and I learnt a lot about volumes and partitions

[@brianlong5777]

Can you please let me know if I can partition my Time Machine for my iMac?

[@Learnwithjoel]

Hi @brianlong5777! You could partition a drive a drive that is used for Time Machine, but I would recommend to dedicate one drive as the Time Machine backup. If the drive goes bad and you have files on the other partition, where would the backup be? THANK YOU so much for watching! It is appreciated more than you know! If this video was useful, I’d love for you to SHARE it with on social media and say how it helped you! Please SUBSCRIBE if you haven’t already, and if you have, THANK YOU for your continued support!

[@Goomer]

Excellent, thanks

[@Learnwithjoel]

You're very welcome @Goomer! Thank you so much for taking your time to watch this video. It is greatly appreciated! If this video has been helped you, I would be honored if you would consider sharing it with your social media network and expressing your gratitude for its assistance. Kindly subscribe if you have not already done so. Your continued support is greatly appreciated.

[@Thislife78-p1w]

But how do I partition mac for 1. DATA and 2. APPLICATIONS?? I'm just a beginner..dpnyou have a vídeo on that? I had tonreboot my mac 😢

[@Learnwithjoel]

Hi @Julia-ir1yj! So actually each Mac by default has two different volumes created: Macintosh HD and Macintosh Data Apple installs all the system files and Applications on the main Macintosh HD and then your home folder and all user files are designed to be stored on the Macintosh Data volume. To the user however you only see one Macintosh HD within the Finder. I would recommend to keep Applications in the Application folder where they belong and if needed, create a volume using Disk Utility to be used for other files/documents. THANK YOU so much for watching! It is appreciated more than you know! If this video was useful, I’d love for you to SHARE it with on social media and say how it helped you! Please SUBSCRIBE if you haven’t already, and if you have, THANK YOU for your continued support!

[@kaat1705]

Dankjewel Joel voor deze fijne uitleg. Ik heb alles zo gedaan en ook een extra veld toegevoegd voor Windows met format ExFat en de andere twee met APFS. Omdat ik met een Macbook air werk. Nu krijg ik toch regelmatig de melding dat ik de schijven niet juist verwijderd heb, terwijl ik er niks mee doe. Weet jij hoe dit kan? Groeten Karin van the Netherlands

[@Learnwithjoel]

Hi @kaat1705! Hope all is well in the Netherlands! Is this happening with an external drive that you formatted to have different volumes or partitions? If so, keep in mind that you often have to eject all volumes individually, or if you eject the top parent level, it will ask if you want to eject all of the volumes. I would double check they're all disconnected and unmounted in the Finder before unplugging everything. Thank you so much for taking your time to watch this video. It is greatly appreciated! If this video has been helped you, I would be honored if you would consider sharing it with your social media network and expressing your gratitude for its assistance. Kindly subscribe if you have not already done so. Your continued support is greatly appreciated.

[@kaat1705]

@@Learnwithjoel Hai, ja alles goed hier in Nederland! :) Super bedankt voor je snelle reactie. Ja het gaat om een nieuwe LaCie externe harde schijf van 4TB. Dus die melding komt niet op het moment van loskoppelen van de schijven...maar ook als ik aan het werk ben. Out of the blue krijg ik deze melding soms.Is het beter om de volumes los te koppelen als je een tijdje niet werkt met de externe schijven? Zou dat het probleem zijn. Ik laat de LaCie altijd aangesloten en zet mijn macbook op sluimerstand.

[@Learnwithjoel]

Hi @kaat1705! My personal recommendation is always to eject and unplug drives before I put the Mac to sleep. If I shut the Mac off, I'll wait till it's completely off and then unplug them. Are you using the cable that came with your LaCie drive? Does it feel like it fits well in your Mac or does it feel loose? What connection is it? Does this external drive only get used with your Mac? Did you format it when you first got it? Make sure it's formatted for Macs and not both Macs and windows if you only have a Mac. I do have another video about formatting that I'll link below for reference: Understanding how to FORMAT your NEW External Hard Drive for your MAC - A look at Apple Disk Utility kzbin.info/www/bejne/mZK8l42NrrNnebM Thanks!

[@kaat1705]

@@Learnwithjoel wat een geweldige uitleg..top! Ja de kabel zat bij de nieuwe verpakking. Ik zal zeker de andere video gaan bekijken. Have a Very Nice day…😄

[@Wombats-1]

I have a few external drives with time machine backups, I want to populate them all to one single drive so I can mirror it in case of data loss. when I try to take the backups/partitions I get the circle symbol instead of the plus, and I am unable to move them all to one disk. what is a good way to ensure I won't delete the backups and also be able to use them to backup/restore everything? the backups I have the issues with were created when I had two internal drives as a fusion disk.

[@marcusbarnes5929]

Why did you choose Mac OS extended over the APFS format?

[@Learnwithjoel]

Hi @Marcus Barnes! I was probably just leaving it as Mac OS Extended for no particular reason. If I were to buy a new drive I would format it as APFS. Thanks so much for watching! If this video was helpful and you learned something new, please SUBSCRIBE to my channel if you haven’t already! If you want to support my content click THANKS below or better yet, SHARE it with a friend on social media and say how it helped you! It helps more than you know and is greatly appreciated!

[@BruceKorb]

@@Learnwithjoel A portable-to-Windows (or Linux) portable drive is often more useful. :). *EXA*bytes, by the way.

[@TommyMa-Canton]

May I know if I could further adjust the quota size after creating the APFS volume?

[@Learnwithjoel]

Great question @TommyMa-Canton. From my experience, once you create the volume and set the quota size, you are not able to go back and alter the size. I've only been able to remove the volume and create new one. THANK YOU so much for watching! It is appreciated more than you know! If this video was useful, I’d love for you to SHARE it with on social media and say how it helped you! Please SUBSCRIBE if you haven’t already, and if you have, THANK YOU for your continued support!

[@TommyMa-Canton]

Thank you for your comment, actually I created an APFS volume on my external SSD for time machine backup. But unfortunately the backup size exceeds the quota and the backup fails. I exploring the way for extending the volume without data lost. Anyway, I've learned more about the partition vs volume on Mac and thank you for your sharing.

[@Djvibratto]

Question: Can a data volume be unmounted and mounted / moved to another OS volume using either terminal or Disk Utility? I updated my OS to sequoia and now can’t log in! I’ve created a second OS in the same container but don’t have enough space to migrate the same data to the new hence why I want to try unmounting, move then mount to the new OS (which boots fine)

[@drugaruka]

What would be better for fixed size Time Machine backups? A partition?

[@Pappysan]

Okay, so what happens to the formatting in the “work files” ExFAT partition? Is there still a section formatted ExFAT or does it automatically revert to the original MacOS format?

[@VelocityRecordingStudio]

Question. I went to download an update for my Mac and I didn’t have enough space for it so I send it to my external hard drive. Now my hard drive has an “update volume” the drive was used for work and now it doesn’t show my files unless I’m in disk utility. Not shure what to do.

[@Quince828]

I have a new 8 gb external drive. Is it ok to partition it so that 5 gb is for Time Machine backup, and 3 gb is for other storage, ie pictures and videos?

[@Learnwithjoel]

Great question @Quince828! Yes it is possible to partition an external drive to use one volume/partition for Time Machine and the another volume/partition for photos, videos and other files. However in my personal opinion, I would not recommend this. The purpose of a backup is to have a separate location of your files incase a hard drive fails or something happens. If you're Time Machine is on the same external drive as your photos and other files, it kinds defeats the purpose. What would happen if the drive got lost, stolen, broken? You would lose everything on there. I always dedicate one external entirely for a Time Machine backup. I hope that helps! THANK YOU so much for watching! It is appreciated more than you know! If this video was useful, I’d love for you to SHARE it with on social media and say how it helped you! Please SUBSCRIBE if you haven’t already, and if you have, THANK YOU for your continued support!

[@Quince828]

@@Learnwithjoel thanks for the answer. It just seemed that 8 tb was a bit of overkill to back up the 1 tb ssd in my iMac.

[@Quince828]

@@Learnwithjoelit seems now that the partition not being used for Time Machine is not accessible. My desktop or finder only shows Time Machine. How do I tell my iMac that I want to see the whole drive? Was it wrong of me to use only a portion of the drive for backups?

[@jamesvo4382]

woohoo thank u for the tut❤❤

[@Learnwithjoel]

You're very welcome @jamesvo4382! THANK YOU so much for watching! It is appreciated more than you know! If this video was useful, I’d love for you to SHARE it with on social media and say how it helped you! SUBSCRIBE if you haven’t already, and if you have, THANK YOU for your continued support!

[@diegoescudero2671]

What If I have some files in my external SSD? those will be deleted?. Thanks for the video explanation I really appreciate it!

[@ny6901]

I would be very afraid to do this but I am curious what happens if you have an external partitioned and you want to wipe only one of the partitions. As a nuance to that, if you have one partition with a small amount of data on it, can you create another partition by hitting that plus sign, .... will it leave the data on the original partition or wipe both to create the 2 separate partitions? OH Found it at around 7min! Just curious! love listening, thank you

[@adriand83]

Great video, thank you.

[@jessejones8224]

Which one would be better to divide a drive for time machine? I hear partition, but would library with the quota work also?

[@bobcrocker1521]

Hi Joel: Can I take a Hard Drive and Partition/Volume part for use with Time Machine without having the entire drive become a Time Machine dedicated drive.

[@Aviator503]

Question/Statement: I'm finding myself a bit confused here. You never actually explained, (or maybe I missed it) what the benefit is to having "separate rooms in the house" really is... Only that, you prefer it that way. Essentially, by that logic, isn't a folder the same exact thing as a partition then? I mean, why not just organized "Photos" and "Videos" into separate folders within the same "house" (SSD)? It keeps everything separated, and categorizes what area of the hard drive to go to, in order to access the data you need. The only benefit to making a partition in this video that I can surmise, is so that I can run different formatting languages on the same drive. Am I wrong here? Is there a greater purpose to having partitions? If one becomes corrupt, does that protect the others from becoming corrupt? Also, if I have multiple partitions using different languages, can I easily move files from one partition to the next without issue? Thanks for any and all clarification!

[@Learnwithjoel]

Hi @Aviator503! Let me clarify and provide a few examples. Will the majority of users need to ever create a partition or volume. No. Most will ever need to or want to. However here's some benefits and reasons I've created them along the side of just being a little more organized. 1. Let say I have a shared family computer with multiple local user accounts. I could make a volume that is shared among all users so it's really easy to share files/folders among each user. Now granted you can do this with the "Public" folder that is automatically created with each user account, but that gets quite cumbersome. Creating a volume, you can ignore the ownership on it and everyone has access to all content on there. 2. Let's say that you need to run Windows on your Mac. Creating a volume/partition on there would allow you to install a Windows OS on there. Without creating a partition/volume, this wouldn't be possible on the same drive...unless it's a virtual machine, and then that's a whole different topic. 3. Let's say that I'm an IT guru and I'm often testing multiple versions of Mac Operating Systems. I would be able to create several volumes/partitions on one external hard drive and install a different macOS on each partition/volume. This is extremely helpful for troubleshooting or testing different things. I hope that helps! THANK YOU so much for watching! It is appreciated more than you know! If this video was useful, I’d love for you to SHARE it with on social media and say how it helped you! Please SUBSCRIBE if you haven’t already, and if you have, THANK YOU for your continued support!

[@sammy_sam_leonardo]

@@Learnwithjoel the situation I came here for is time machine needs it’s own volume on an external hard drive if you want to store anything else on the drive.

[@nestormaiz7393]

It also helps with data loss. If for some reason one of the partitions gets corrupted it doesn’t take the whole drive with it.

[@vkmccable]

I have a 16TB drive set up in Raid 1. Would I need to partition the drive into 8TB per partition one being a copy of the original. One would be named #1 8TB in size and one Copy 8TB in size. Is this how I would set up these partitions?

[@djboogieboy]

My macbook pro is showing 2 hard drives.a hd and a volume,how can i merge them together because its not letting me update for some reason.i have tried the whole partition approach and its not letting me do anything thanks.

[@Learnwithjoel]

Hi @djboogieboy, How old is your MacBook Pro? It's not one of the older ones with a Hybrid drive in it, is it? Has it always been that way? You probably won't be able to "merge" the volumes. You would want to delete the volume that you don't want to get rid of it and probably start over. The nice thing is that the macOS won't let you delete the partition that contains the operating system and applications. As always though, make sure you have a backup of everything just in case before deleting anything. THANK YOU so much for watching! It is appreciated more than you know! If this video was useful, I’d love for you to SHARE it with on social media and say how it helped you! Please SUBSCRIBE if you haven’t already, and if you have, THANK YOU for your continued support!

[@djboogieboy]

@@Learnwithjoel its a 2018 or 19.

[@aftabjaved]

hi there, i got A Samsung T7 touch 2Tb. i tried to partition it or creat Valum but it wont let me .i wonder if you have a video on this drive . i am running High Siera on 27 iMac. thank in advance

[@farzadjahanfard]

Great content mate 👌🏼 i have a question For macHD itself ao you recommend volume or partition??

[@DjBlacid]

Really useful and thorough explanation, thank you so much! Quick question, i have an EXFAT external drive with some data in it, if i create a partition on it and set it to APFS could i then create volumes inside that partition, so that i could have volumes in an HDD that wasn't APFS initially, without formatting it?

[@RashmiKarunaratne1]

Even after formatting using exFAT, scheme GUID partition map, still won't allow to partition as 76 MB is used from the external drive. Erased multiple times, but still has the issue. How do I fix this>

[@explorer8888]

Hey Joel! This is a great video. I am transitioning from PC and this helps a lot. I have a question for you or any of your viewers with knowledge and experience with this. I went ahead and bought an external portable Samsung T7, 1TB for time machine backups and practice what I just learned from this video. I made a mistake and forgot to eject and disconnected the T7 from the port. Now it doesn’t work anymore (it doesn’t mount). Is it fixable or I just wasted $90 bucks?

[@mrmohammed4316]

Why do I make volumes instead of just folders in one partition? Are Volumes separated from each other like partitions incase of corrupted file system?

[@yvannugz07]

What to use to format mac without affecting the data. Partition or volume. Thanks in advance!

[@djstretchtone9851]

Hi, I don't mean to ask a dumb question but I'm not clear on APFS drives with Mac OS. I have a 6 TB External drive in APFS format. This is a mobile portable drive with a copy of my whole DJ library. I am in places where there is no Internet connectivity whatsoever. Do I absolutely have to have volumes? Can I just store my folders with Aiff Flac and MP3s inside them? Thank you in advance

[@ruwanperera5894]

Excellent!!!

[@ArashPakzad]

Great video

[@Learnwithjoel]

THANK YOU so much for watching @ArashPakzad! It is appreciated more than you know! If this video was useful, I’d love for you to SHARE it with on social media and say how it helped you! SUBSCRIBE if you haven’t already, and if you have, THANK YOU for your continued support!

[@Ga.g-1992]

😅 for me is better having a Nas of 8 for storage, and 2 tb SDD to use for proyects and 1 tb and flash drives of 512gb for the goo or lower, the performance of partitions and Volumes slow your performance and speed depends of the format of the disk. Clearly if you work on video for 6k fps big files are always be your problem, 😮 but really I am a photographer/analyst/Marketing - Dont complicate your life - you dont need a lot of storage, 😅 why you is the point of the need to back up everything. capacity storage is pointless with out a porpuse - so be smart and take responsability of & erase what you dont really need and save your basics and important things - Great video and very detail explanation. 😅 but I really I dont need Volumes & partitions on my virtual persona ... less stress more joy and keep going :3 😮🎉

[@Learnwithjoel]

I appreciate you and your outlook on the topic of this @Ga.g-1992, and I do agree! Sometimes it's nice to purge files that are no longer needed and also keep it simple! Thank you so much for taking your time to watch this video. It is greatly appreciated! If this video has been beneficial, I would be honored if you would consider sharing it with your social media network and expressing your gratitude for its assistance. Kindly subscribe if you have not already done so. Your continued support is greatly appreciated.

[@sbkhan303]

how to change interal HD APFS Data Volume ?

[@Learnwithjoel]

Hi @sbkhan303! You would have to boot into Recovery Mode and then wipe the internal hard drive to format it as something different. Just remember to back up all of your files. Also if you were to do this, you would need to re-install the OS and any and all apps. It's pretty much starting from scratch. Thank you so much for taking your time to watch this video. It is greatly appreciated! If this video has been beneficial, I would be honored if you would consider sharing it with your social media network and expressing your gratitude for its assistance. Kindly subscribe if you have not already done so. Your continued support is greatly appreciated.

[@ericfulmer2546]

Do one on RAID Utility 😎👍🏼

[@anthonyrego1351]

Apologies if you mentioned this, but does creating partitions or volumes on an internal SSD on a Mac slow down the read/write speeds of the disk? … For context: I recently purchased a new M1 Pro with an internal 512GB drive and I want to designate around a 100GB for photo processing in Lightroom when I’m out and about rather than carrying an external disk.

[@Learnwithjoel]

HI @anthonyrego1351! I personally wouldn't worry about a slow down of the drive if you add a volume to it. Especially because it's an SSD on an M1 Pro, I think you'l be fine with photo editing. Thanks so much for watching! If this video was helpful and you learned something new, please SUBSCRIBE to my channel if you haven’t already! If you want to support my content click THANKS below or better yet, SHARE it with a friend on social media and say how it helped you! It helps more than you know and is greatly appreciated!

[@L3UZ3R]

I have a doubt! I just factory reset my MacBook, and I’m in the process of thinking if 150GB allocated for OS and 350GB allocated for my data is going to be enough? (This is all internal storage)

[@Learnwithjoel]

Hi @L3UZ3R. So you want to partition/create a volume on your main internal drive? I would for sure go with a volume if it's a newer SSD internally. This way you can always allocate more to OS. THANK YOU so much for watching! It is appreciated more than you know! If this video was useful, I’d love for you to SHARE it with on social media and say how it helped you! Please SUBSCRIBE if you haven’t already, and if you have, THANK YOU for your continued support!

[@plugger410]

So if you delete a volume is it the same as deleting a partition where everything on that volume is erased, or is it automatically just incorporated back into the other combined volume?

[@Learnwithjoel]

Great question @plugger410! When a volume gets deleted, it will erase all data from that volume just like it does on a partition. So make sure to backup the files and move to another location prior! THANK YOU so much for watching! It is appreciated more than you know! If this video was useful, I’d love for you to SHARE it with on social media and say how it helped you! Please SUBSCRIBE if you haven’t already, and if you have, THANK YOU for your continued support!

[@quickstep2u]

I'm confused - you keep saying make sure your files are backed up. I thought the external drive is for back ups. Would you need a second external drive for backups only if you chose to set your computer up this way?

[@Learnwithjoel]

Great question @quickstep2u! I guess it depends on how the external drive is being used. For example, I will keep temporary files on an external drive. Those files only live on that external drive, so if something were to happen to it, I would lose that data and it's not backed up anywhere else. The other option is to dedicate an external drive to be used as a backup with software like Time Machine. This makes an identical copy of everything on my Mac. This way if something happens to my Mac, or the files on it, I have a backup copy on the external drive using Time Machine. I have a video that talks about backing up and Time Machine that I'll link below for reference: BACKUP YOUR MAC! - IN-DEPTH look at Apple Time Machine and many ways to save and recover your files! kzbin.info/www/bejne/gonPZYShp9irfrM Thank you for your continued support. Your appreciation is deeply valued! If this video has proven beneficial, I would be honored if you could share it on social media and express your gratitude for its assistance.

[@sbkhan303]

how can we do it for internal drive ?

[@Learnwithjoel]

Hi @sbkhan303! You would have to boot into Recovery Mode and then wipe the internal hard drive to format it as something different. Just remember to back up all of your files. Also if you were to do this, you would need to re-install the OS and any and all apps. It's pretty much starting from scratch. Thank you so much for taking your time to watch this video. It is greatly appreciated! If this video has been beneficial, I would be honored if you would consider sharing it with your social media network and expressing your gratitude for its assistance. Kindly subscribe if you have not already done so. Your continued support is greatly appreciated.

[@Notitoforget]

Good Evening Joel from Dublin Ireland. Really enjoying all your tutorials Could you do a video about transferring ITunes music to an external hard drive. Also a tutorial on the Canon M50 mark 2. Thanks in advance.Monday 27 March -Time 20.44

[@Learnwithjoel]

I appreciate you and your kind words@Notitoforget! I will certainly add iTunes Music to my never ending list of topics! I've actually been looking at new cameras and curious on how the M50 is. Do you have one? Are you looking for a tutorial on how to use the M50 or implement it into an editing workflow? Thanks so much for watching! If this video was helpful and you learned something new, please SUBSCRIBE to my channel if you haven’t already! If you want to support my content click THANKS below or better yet, SHARE it with a friend on social media and say how it helped you! It helps more than you know and is greatly appreciated!

[@Notitoforget]

Good evening Joel, Thank you for your quick response. Yes I have a Canon Mark 11. Looking forward to your tutorial. Cheers.

[@razipsamian8473]

Thlink to the file system formats - where is it?

[@Learnwithjoel]

Hi @Razip Samian! What are you looking for specifically? Thanks so much for watching! If this video was helpful and you learned something new, please SUBSCRIBE to my channel if you haven’t already! If you want to support my content click THANKS below or better yet, SHARE it with a friend on social media and say how it helped you! It helps more than you know and is greatly appreciated!

[@mojocat7675]

I am on the partition screen but the plus and minus signs are grayed out. I have been working on this for 5 hours now. It will only allow me to participation my new HDD in any format EXCEPT ExFat, which is what I need.

[@gergemall]

Thx Joel

[@vicluistudio3320]

Do I understand it correctly? If within an external drive: Volume 1 Volume 2 - Partition 1 and Partition 2 In this case, Volume 2 no longer share spare space with Volume 1, am I correct? Since once you have divided a volume into partitions, the volume's size will be fixed as the partition size has been designed. But Volume 1 size is still flexible, it would have all the spaces minus the files size that are inside partition 1 and 2. Also, since when Quota volume = 1TB , it means that, you can't have file bigger than 1TB inside it then can I guess that: Reserved volume = 1TB, it means, there is always 1TB of space left for a reserved volume , meaning no matter how many files you put it into other volume, there will always be at least 1TB of space for that reserved volume.

[@cobrabtc]

Hi Sir. Found your channel and watched a few videos about iCloud Photos you previously posted. I am having a major syncing issue and I have had an open ticket with Apple support for quite some time now. I’m wondering if you might have heard about this issue and a possible solution. Is there anyway to reach you and explain my situation in detail? I don’t have a FB account. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[@Learnwithjoel]

Hi @James K! What is the sync issue? You can always post here or on my community page, as their may be other people who have had same issue: www.youtube.com/@Learnwithjoel/community I look forward to chatting! Thanks so much for watching! If this video was helpful and you learned something new, please SUBSCRIBE to my channel if you haven’t already! If you want to support my content click THANKS below or better yet, SHARE it with a friend on social media and say how it helped you! It helps more than you know and is greatly appreciated!

[@cobrabtc]

@@Learnwithjoel hi. Thanks for replying. The following iCloud Photos issue has been a problem for months. I even read on other forums that this issue existed even when iOS 16 was in beta last year. The main issue: iCloud photo “library “. Months ago, I created a shared “library “. Uploaded a lot of photos. I sent 4 invites out but for some reason only 1 person got the invite and accepted it. Since this was still buggy, I decided to delete the library. That’s when the issues started. The library seemed to be removed from all my Apple devices at first. At this time, my iCloud Photos stopped syncing. I only see the message: “deleting shared library “. Again there is no shared library on my Apple Photos devices. The person that originally accepted the invitation now shows “removing from Shared library “ on her devices. I went one step further and checked the iCloud Photos issue on the cloud (website). I only see folders called “personal library “ and “shared library “. However, the shared library is completely empty. All my personal iCloud Photos are still in the cloud but stopped syncing months ago the day I deleted the shared library. Apple has no clue. This case has been sent to higher levels and they have no answers for me. Many users on communities out there had similar issues too but no explanations or solutions. Thoughts? Also… this is about the new feature called shared library…. Not shared folders. In Case some are confused. Thanks. James

[@cobrabtc]

@@Learnwithjoel by the way .. adding to my previous comment. I have already tried turning off iCloud Photos and resetting stuff. Every time I try to enable my iCloud Photos again, it starts and gets stuck on deleting shared library…. Has to be a server side issue. Apple isn’t saying much of anything although I’m paying for storage that doesn’t work. Sucks

[@cutenaAsoatPusa]

Thanks

[@Learnwithjoel]

THANK YOU so much for watching @cutenaAsoatPusa! It is appreciated more than you know! If this video was useful, I’d love for you to SHARE it with on social media and say how it helped you! SUBSCRIBE if you haven’t already, and if you have, THANK YOU for your continued support!

[@zinktrumpet]

I dont get it, why not dispence with partitions and volumes and just use folders? What is it that I'm missing here?

[@Learnwithjoel]

Great question @zinktrumpet! From my understanding when you have separate partitions or volumes, it can be faster for the computer to search on those particular locations as it's not searching the entire computer. Also some users will do it with concerns of a potential corrupted portion or drive, and the theory is that if you have separate partitions, one could get corrupted and the others could be fine. Whether all of this is true or not, you really have to ask is the potential benefit worth it over the possible risk and is truly helpful. Another reason I would personally do it is because working in IT, I am able to create different partitions on one external hard drive and then install multiple different versions of Mac or windows operating systems on it. This is extremely helpful for troubleshooting and probably the only reason I personally create partitions or volumes. For the average user, honestly just stick with folders :-) I hope that helps! Thank you so much for taking your time to watch this video! If it was helpful or you learned something new, please SUBSCRIBE to my channel if you haven’t already! If you want to support the content I make, click THANKS at the top, or better yet, SHARE it with a friend on social media and say how it helped you! Your support helps more than you know and is greatly appreciated!

[@zinktrumpet]

@@Learnwithjoel Thank you for your reply :)

[@shenalonline6404]

How to Transfer microsoft Outlook Applications From Mac Onto an External Drive

[@ghostpepperrides4805]

Outstanding. Sub

[@Learnwithjoel]

Thank you for your continued support @Ghost Pepper Rides! I appreciate your feedback! If this video was helpful and you learned something new, please support my channel, by clicking THANKS below, or better yet, SHARE it with a friend on social media and say how it helped you! It helps more than you know and is greatly appreciated!

[@SHATAYAKAMILION]

An EB (Exabyte) is 1024 Petabytes. One petabyte is 1024 Terabytes.

[@Learnwithjoel]

Absolutely @SHATAYAKAMILION! Thank you so much for taking your time to watch this video. It is greatly appreciated! If this video has been helped you, I would be honored if you would consider sharing it with your social media network and expressing your gratitude for its assistance. Kindly subscribe if you have not already done so. Your continued support is greatly appreciated.

[@mehedihasaniqbal7633]

EB represents Exabyte which is 1M TB= 1 EB

[@angelopetrelli1083]

Great video, cheers ! By the way, are you an educator? If not, you should become one,.....👍⭐👍⭐👍⭐👍⭐👍⭐👍

[@Learnwithjoel]

I appreciate you and your kind words @Angelo petrelli! Thanks so much for watching! If this video was helpful and you learned something new, please SUBSCRIBE to my channel if you haven’t already! If you want to support my content click THANKS below or better yet, SHARE it with a friend on social media and say how it helped you! It helps more than you know and is greatly appreciated!

[@kaltrex9465]

I erased the parents internal SSD and it made things go out of whack. I’m not an expert on this. It looks like a petition was created between the 240 GB SSD and 240 GB OS 10 base system. Odd. The only child folder is the sata internal AFS physical store and it’s not mounting. Should the SSD be format Mac OS extended Journaled encrypted or AFS encrypted? I had SSD, container, and Macintosh HD internal and nothing else. Not sure how to get that back.

[@johngaspar4425]

I think this iis muck like the sparse image we used to do back in the day - no?

[@gregf9160]

EB is Exabytes -- 1EB = 1,024 Petabytes

[@sk3ffingtonai]

EB = Exabytes, two to the sixtieth power or 1 BILLION GB

[@Learnwithjoel]

So many things to learn @mr.skeffington0007! Thanks so much for watching and sharing! If this video was helpful and you learned something new, please SUBSCRIBE to my channel if you haven’t already! If you want to support my content click THANKS below or better yet, SHARE it with a friend on social media and say how it helped you! It helps more than you know and is greatly appreciated!

[@ricwestdoesitwork]

1 EB (Exabyte) is equal to 1 billion gigabytes.

[@Learnwithjoel]

That is a lot of storage @Ric West! Definitely above my pay grade! :-) Thanks for watching!

[@ricwestdoesitwork]

@@Learnwithjoel Not above the pay grade as much as it would be for the wallet.

[@MAHMOOODEY]

Don't More size partition system mac

[@Learnwithjoel]

Not sure what you mean @amrebnelaas Thanks so much for watching! If this video was helpful and you learned something new, please SUBSCRIBE to my channel if you haven’t already! If you want to support my content click THANKS below or better yet, SHARE it with a friend on social media and say how it helped you! It helps more than you know and is greatly appreciated!

[@MAHMOOODEY]

@@Learnwithjoel Correct with me, when I deleted the partition and created it with the extension fat32, it was added successfully. Thank you for your interest.

[@alan36753]

This is what I was hoping to find but sadly the distracting hissy background noise is distracting me, like trying to listen to someone talking when they pull off their headphones but let the music carry on playing. Maybe it's just my brain but it's annoying and I have to bail. Seems to be a typically American thing where content creators look for more bells & whistles to compress into their content. The fancy lighting, the pointless intro you have to sit through, constant reminders to subscribe, pointing to corners for links to other videos and of course the obligatory background music. It's just junk and packaging that needs to be removed before you get to what you want.

[@Learnwithjoel]

I appreciate your feedback @alanhopkins3675! I've had heard lots of feedback from both sides of the spectrum, so I just do my best and try to create informative easy to understand content. Thanks for watching though!