The difference is that volumes can be created within the same partition and are much easier to manage.

On Catalina and later (with APFS file system), Apple recommends you to create separate volumes instead. On all macOS versions before Catalina (running HFS+ file system), you have to partition your hard drive. The first thing to know about how to partition Mac hard drive is that there are now actually two different options available to you. Let’s explore what it takes to partition hard drives on your Mac, how to partition external hard drives, how to format a hard drive for Mac, and a few extra partitioning tips and tricks. In fact, all the recent Macs already come with partitioned hard drives, since they contain a secret boot drive with the macOS Recovery System and a few other essential utilities that help you fix your Mac when there’s a critical problem. Effectively, partitioning gives you two computers in one. Partitioning is basically a way to divide your hard drive into separate containers that don’t really interact with each other and can coexist without any interference.

So you could have a beta version of a new macOS running alongside your stable one, or even a completely different operating system like Windows. The most common reason for trying to partition Mac hardrive has always been the ability to install two operating systems on the same computer at once.

How to partition an external hard drive for Mac and Windowsįor years, trying to partition hard drives was something that only the most technical Mac users could do.

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