Formatting is a quick process that you can perform from within your computer’s built-in settings.

USB 3. 0 — A rectangular port found on the majority of computers produced before 2017. Most external hard drives use USB 3. 0 connectors. USB-C — An oval port found on MacBooks and some Microsoft laptops. If you have a USB-C port, you’ll either need to buy a USB 3. 0 to USB-C adapter or find an external hard drive that includes a USB-C cable.

Generally speaking, it isn’t much more expensive to buy a terabyte (1024 gigabytes) hard drive than it is to buy a 512 gigabyte hard drive. Storage also tends to get cheaper the more of it you buy (e. g. , a two terabyte hard drive will cost significantly less than two one terabyte hard drives).

Western Digital Adata Buffalo Seagate Samsung Also check that the hard drive company will cover data recovery later down the road if there are issues with the hard drive. [3] X Expert Source Luigi OppidoComputer & Tech Specialist Expert Interview. 26 February 2020.

Make sure that you’re plugging the external hard drive into a USB port on your computer itself, not a hub or a keyboard USB port.

If you don’t see the File Explorer app icon, press ⊞ Win+E to open File Explorer.

If you don’t see anything listed below the “Devices and drives” heading, double-click the heading to expand it.

NTFS — Select this option if you only want to use the hard drive with Windows computers. exFAT — Select this option if you want to use the hard drive with both Windows and Mac computers. FAT32 — Select this option if you want to use the hard drive with computers and non-computer sources alike. Some Linux computers or installations will require a FAT32 drive.

If the drive belonged to another person before you, consider first unchecking the “Quick format” box. This will cause the formatting process to take significantly longer, but it will also overwrite completely the hard drive.

When you plug in an external drive, it will oftentimes show up in Finder on the left hand side, so you don’t even have to try and locate it on the desktop. [4] X Expert Source Luigi OppidoComputer & Tech Specialist Expert Interview. 31 July 2019.

Mac OS Extended (Journaled) — Select this option if you just want to use your external hard drive with a Mac computer. ExFAT — Select this option if you want to use your external hard drive with both Windows and Mac computers.