Partition Type For Mac

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Summary :

Want to format an external hard drive for Mac and Windows PC? Do you know how to do this work easily? This MiniTool article will show you specific methods to make external hard drive compatible with Mac and PC, which are easy and safe to complete.

Partition Magic Mac has all latest techniques that keep your drive safe and secure. The software allows you to make, resize or mix the existing partitions. You can create distinct storage space, arrange data, allows multitasking of operating system, modify partitions, preview, delete or opt for automatic partition option. In fact, the type of partition map makes almost no difference for non-bootable volumes. Thus, if a Mac owner does not plan to start Mac OS X or another operating system from the external hard drive, he or she can apply any type of the partition map without breaking the head against the wall. Several maps are available (e.g., APT, MBR, etc.). After removing the second partition on drive1 with sudo gpt remove -i 2 disk1 the MBR blocked adding the partition with the proper type. So the gpt had to be destroyed: sudo gpt -r show disk1 #get the details sudo gpt destroy disk1 sudo gpt create -f disk1 #create a new partition table Adding all previous partitions with the proper types.

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As we know, external hard drives are widely used to backup data or interchange files among different computers. Well, is there an external hard drive that could be shared between Mac and Windows PC? Of course, there is. Actually, most external hard disks could be compatible with Mac and PC as long as you format them correctly.

Why Need to Format External Hard Drive for Mac and PC

To put it simply, if you want to share external hard drive between Mac and PC, you need to format an external hard drive for Mac and PC.

Currently, hard drives for Windows PC are always formatted with NTFS, while hard disks for Mac are formatted with HFS+. However, when we connect a NTFS formatted disk to Mac, Mac OS X doesn't allow us to write files to the drive neither edit files, though it can read a NTFS drive. Similarly, Windows OS will ask us to format the HFS+ formatted drive when we connecting such a disk, let along edit files saved on HFS+ formatted hard disks unless we resort to third party programs.

But luckily, there are file systems well supported by both Mac and Windows PC, and they are FAT32 (it might be called MS-DOS on Mac) and exFAT. As long as we format the external hard drive to one of these 2 file systems, it can be shared between Mac and Windows.

Further Reading

Both FAT32 and exFAT have advantages and disadvantages.

FAT32: FAT32 works with all versions of Windows, Mac OS, Linux, game consoles, etc.

However, single files on a FAT32 drive can't be larger than 4GB. If your external drive saves files larger than 4GB or you plan to save larger files to this drive, converting to FAT32 is not recommended.

In addition, a FAT32 partition must be not more than 32GB if you create it in Windows Disk Management. Of course, there is free partition manager that can help create a FAT32 volume up to 2TB, which also functions correctly.

exFAT: exFAT has very large file size and partition size limits, which means it's a good idea to format your external hard drive to exFAT.

Nevertheless, a lot of users complained that exFAT is slow, and they highly suggest using FAT32 if you can avoid file size constraints.

Three Options for Accessing NTFS Drives on Mac

Paid Third-Party Drivers

Some paid third-party NTFS drivers for Mac can be used to access NTFS drives on Mac. They work well and they have better performance than the free solutions which will be mentioned in the following part. Paragon NTFS for Mac is such a driver.

Besides, you can also use the paid third-party file system converters to convert NTFS to FAT32 or exFAT which are compatible with both Mac and PC. MiniTool Partition Wizard is one representative.

Free Third-Party Drivers

FUSE for macOS is a free and open-source NTFS driver that can enable write support. But, this solution is slower relatively. And the automatically mounting NTFS partitions in read-write mode can be a security risk for your Mac computer.

Apple's Experimental NTFS-Write Support

The Mac OS has an experimental support for writing to NTFS drives. Usually, it is disabled by default and needs some messing around in the Mac terminal to enable it.

It doesn't work properly all the time and could lead to potential issues with your NTFS file system. For example, it had corrupted data before. Thus, we don't suggest using this tool and we believe it is disabled by this reason.

Here, we recommend using the paid third-party tools since they are easy-to-use and can do good work for you.

Then, we will introduce these three options for you in the following content.

The Best Paid Third-Party Driver: Paragon NTFS for Mac

Paragon NTFS for Mac can write, edit, delete, copy, or move files on NTFS volumes from your Mac computer. It offers a 10-day free trial. If you want to use it all the time, you need to pay for it.

With it, you don't have to fiddle with terminal commands to mount partitions manually. Additionally, it can mount partitions automatically and safely. More importantly, it can code with the potential corruption. If you purchase a Seagate drive, you can even get a free download of Paragon NTFS for Mac.

All in all, it does its works well and gives you good user's experience.

The Best Free Third-Party Drivers: FUSE for macOS

FUSE for macOS is a free solution to access NTFS on Mac. But it is less secure.

If you want to make automatically mount NTFS partitions in read-write mode on Mac, you need to temporarily disable the System Integrity Protection and replace one of Apple's built-in tools with a binary that is more vulnerable to attack. Thus, your Mac is in danger when using this driver.

However, you can use it to manually mount NTFS partitions in read-write mode if you never mind using the Terminal. This will be safer, but you need to do more work. You can go to google the steps and see how complex they are.

Apple's Experimental NTFS-Writing Support: Don't Do This, Seriously

Although we mentioned this method in our article, we still don't recommend it because it is the least tested. It is just for educational purposes, and it is available on Mac OS 10.12 Sierra. Perhaps, it will be unstable forever.

How to Quickly Format External Hard Drive for Mac and PC without Losing Data

Another way to access NTFS drive on Mac is to convert the NTFS/HFS+ to FAT/exFAT. Then, the drive can be used on both Mac and PC.

There should be some important data on the drive. To keep it safe, you can choose this best NTFS/HFS+ to FAT/exFAT converter: MiniTool Partition Wizard.

How to Convert NTFS to FAT32 or exFAT Without Data Loss

To format hard drive for Mac and Windows without data loss, we suggest using MiniTool Partition Wizard and its 'Convert NTFS to FATS32' function. If you are a personal user, you can try its Professional Edition.

Step 1: Run MiniTool Partition Wizard

Download this software to your computer. Then, you can open the software and input the license key to the pop-out window to get its Professional Edition.

Step 2: Convert NTFS to FAT32 with This Software

After running the program successfully, we can see its main interface as follows:

Here, please select the NTFS partition of external hard drive and choose 'Convert NTFS to FAT' feature from the left action pane. If there is more than one NTFS partition, convert all of them one by one.

At last, click 'Apply' button to make the change executed.

When MiniTool Partition Wizard shows it applies the change successfully, the original NTFS will finally become a FAT32 partition.

By this way, you can easily format an external hard drive for Mac and PC without losing any data. Then, you can share external hard drive between Mac and PC

You Can Convert NTFS to exFAT in 3 Steps

However, if you want to convert NTFS to exFAT to make external hard drive compatible with Mac and PC, 3 steps are required.

Step 1: Transfer Data out from External Hard Drive

You can choose to copy and paste those files to other external devices or internal hard disk of Windows, but it will cost much time. Instead, you can use MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition to create a copy for your external drive, which is faster.

If there is only one NTFS partition on external hard drive, refer to the tutorial Copy Partition to get instructions. However, if there is more than one NTFS partition, view Copy Disk to get specific operations.

Step 2: Create exFAT Partition with MiniTool Partition Wizard

The Free Edition of this software also enables you to do this job.

Firstly, you need to delete the partition by using this software. Just open the software to enter its main interface. Then, choose the target partition and click 'Delete Partition' from the left action pane. After that, you should click 'Apply Safari free download for mac. ' to keep this change.

Secondly, the target partition will become unallocated. Here, you need to choose that partition and click on 'Create Partition' from the left action pane.

Thirdly, you will see a pop-out window. Here, you can choose 'exFAT' from the 'File System' setting option. At the same time, you can also set some other parameters for this partition, including 'Partition Label', 'Drive Letter', 'Size And Location'. After that, please click on 'OK'.

Mac os partition tool

Fourthly, you will go back to the main interface. Then, please click on 'Apply' to save these changes.

Finally, an exFAT partition will be created on your external hard disk so that it could be shared between Mac and Windows PC

Step 3: Transfer Data back to External Drive

If you want to share files that you have backed up between Mac and PC, now please transfer these files back to external hard drive.

How to Convert HFS+ to FAT32 or exFAT without Losing Data

Besides, you can format an external hard drive for Mac and Windows by converting HFS+ to FAT32 or exFAT without losing any data.

Partition mac for windows 10

Step 1: Backup Data in HFS+ Partition on Mac

Just transfer all useful files out from the external hard drive to other devices on Mac. Of course, if you have a backup already, ignore this step.

Step 2: Create a FAT32 or exFAT Partition on Windows PC

Some people may ask why create such partitions on Windows rather than Mac. That is because there are cases reporting FAT32 (MS-DOS) or exFAT partitions created on Mac did not work well on Windows.

Please skip to Solution 1: Format External Hard Drive to FAT32 to get steps to create a FAT32 partitions or go back to Step 2: Create exFAT Partition with MiniTool Partition Wizard to get operations to create an exFAT partition.

How to Make an Empty External Drive Compatible with Mac and PC

If there is no file saved on your external hard drive, how to make external hard drive compatible with Mac and PC?

It's very easy to share it between Mac and PC and you also need a Windows computer, a Mac machine, and the free partition manager MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition.

There are 3 solutions for this case, so please choose the one you like most to format external hard drive Windows 10/8/7.

Solution 1: Format External Hard Drive Windows 10/8/7 to FAT32

Since users are unable to create a FAT32 partition larger than 32GB in Windows Disk Management, they need to use MiniTool Partition Wizard Free.

Note: when you connect an external hard drive which is formatted with HFS+ with computer, Windows may ask you to format the drive. Please choose Cancel.

Please download and install this program on your Windows computer to format an external hard drive for Mac and PC.

Firstly, open the software to enter its main interface as follows. Here, please select the NTFS partition or HFS+ partition of external hard drive, and click 'Delete Partition' feature from the left action pane. If there are multiple partitions on the external disk, please select the disk and click 'Delete All Partitions' feature instead. After that, an unallocated space will be released.

Secondly, you can create one or more FAT32 partitions in unallocated space. Free web browser games for mac. Select the unallocated space and choose 'Create Partition' feature from the left side.

Then, you should choose 'FAT32' from the 'File System' option in the pop-out window. Meanwhile, you can set properties for this new partition and click 'OK' to go back to the main window of Partition Wizard.

At last, click 'Apply' button to make all changes performed.

Solution 2: Format External Hard Drive Windows 7/8/10 to exFAT

Firstly, please delete the NTFS or HFS+ partition in either MiniTool Partition Wizard or Windows Disk Management to release unallocated space. Then, you can create an exFAT partition with MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition by following steps introduced in the section Step 2: Create exFAT Partition with MiniTool Partition Wizard.

Once a FAT32 or exFAT partition is created on your external hard drive, you can share it on both Mac and Windows PC.

Partition Mac For Windows 10

Solution 3: Create One HFS+ Partition for Mac and One NTFS Partition for Windows

Alternatively, you can create 2 partitions on the external hard drive: one is for Mac, and the other is for Windows. As to size for each partition, it depends on your own demands. By this way, you can easily format an external hard drive for Mac and Windows.

Step 1: Create a NTFS Partition and a FAT32 Partition

Please run MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition, then delete all the original NTFS or HFS+ partition(s), and create a new NTFS partition as well as a FAT32 partition, and the latter will be formatted to HFS+ in Mac machine.

Then, select the external hard drive and choose 'Delete All Partitions' to create an unallocated space.

Mac Os Partition Tool

Here, select the unallocated space and choose 'Create Partition' feature from the left action pane.

Now, please specify partition label (Windows is recommended), partition type (primary or logical), drive letter, file system (NTFS), cluster size, and partition size (you can change the length of the handle to adjust partition size). Then, click 'OK' to continue.

Type

Partition Type For Mac Os

Now, you can see a NTFS partition is created. Please use the same way to create a FAT32 partition labeled with Mac. At last, click 'Apply' button to make all changes performed.

Step 2: Format the FAT32 Partition to HFS+ Partition on Mac

Please go to Utilities → Disk Utility to get the window below:

Then, select the external hard drive and click 'Partition' tab on the top.

Now, find the FAT32 partition and format it to OS X Extended (Journaled), which is the desired HFS+. Finally, click 'Apply' button to make all changes performed.

Tip: You may receive the prompt 'The volume 'MAC' is not journaled. As a result it can not be resized'. Just ignore the message and click 'OK' button to continue.

After NTFS partition and HFS+ partition are created on your external hard drive, it can be shared between Mac and Windows PC.

Note: You might be unable to share all files saved on external drive since Windows doesn't support HFS+ partition while Mac doesn't support NTFS partition completely.
Partition Type For Mac

Bottom Line

Are you planning to format an external hard drive for Mac and PC? If yes, now try one of our methods to make external hard drive compatible with Mac and PC.

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Should you have any problem, just feel free to leave us a message in comment part below or send an email to [email protected].

Format Hard Drive for Mac and PC FAQ

How do I make my hard drive compatible with Mac and PC?
If you want your hard drive to be compatible with both Mac and PC, you should format the hard drive to the file system that is supported by both of these two operating systems. FAT32 and exFAT can meet your requirements.
What is the best hard drive format for Mac and PC?
Although both FAT32 and exFAT are compatible with Mac and PC, exFAT is a much better choice because it has fewer limitations. For example, it has a larger file size and partition size limits.
If you formatted your hard drive to exFAT with Apple's HFS Plus, Windows will not recognize the exFAT drive. You can consider using a third-party partition tool to format your hard drive to exFAT.
Windows can only read a Mac hard drive that is formatted to FAT32 or exFAT using third-party software. If the file system of the Mac hard drive is HFS+ or APFS, the drive will become unreadable in Windows.

Mac computers, whether you have an iMac, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, or another Mac device, all have a finite amount of space. How you use it depends how quickly, or not, that space fills up and whether you need to add more space — either internally (such as upgrading to an SSD), or connecting to one or more external hard drives.

One thing you may not know is that the Mac boot drive is already partitioned. In all fairly recent models, the boot drive contains a secret partition that includes the macOS Recovery System, some essential Mac first aid tools and an installer, should, for any reason, your macOS fail to install or reboot.

Before we go into how to partition a Mac hard drive or SSD, let's consider the benefits, and what you would need to do before partitioning a hard drive.

Benefits of making a partition in a Mac hard drive

Partition type for macbook pro

Fourthly, you will go back to the main interface. Then, please click on 'Apply' to save these changes.

Finally, an exFAT partition will be created on your external hard disk so that it could be shared between Mac and Windows PC

Step 3: Transfer Data back to External Drive

If you want to share files that you have backed up between Mac and PC, now please transfer these files back to external hard drive.

How to Convert HFS+ to FAT32 or exFAT without Losing Data

Besides, you can format an external hard drive for Mac and Windows by converting HFS+ to FAT32 or exFAT without losing any data.

Step 1: Backup Data in HFS+ Partition on Mac

Just transfer all useful files out from the external hard drive to other devices on Mac. Of course, if you have a backup already, ignore this step.

Step 2: Create a FAT32 or exFAT Partition on Windows PC

Some people may ask why create such partitions on Windows rather than Mac. That is because there are cases reporting FAT32 (MS-DOS) or exFAT partitions created on Mac did not work well on Windows.

Please skip to Solution 1: Format External Hard Drive to FAT32 to get steps to create a FAT32 partitions or go back to Step 2: Create exFAT Partition with MiniTool Partition Wizard to get operations to create an exFAT partition.

How to Make an Empty External Drive Compatible with Mac and PC

If there is no file saved on your external hard drive, how to make external hard drive compatible with Mac and PC?

It's very easy to share it between Mac and PC and you also need a Windows computer, a Mac machine, and the free partition manager MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition.

There are 3 solutions for this case, so please choose the one you like most to format external hard drive Windows 10/8/7.

Solution 1: Format External Hard Drive Windows 10/8/7 to FAT32

Since users are unable to create a FAT32 partition larger than 32GB in Windows Disk Management, they need to use MiniTool Partition Wizard Free.

Note: when you connect an external hard drive which is formatted with HFS+ with computer, Windows may ask you to format the drive. Please choose Cancel.

Please download and install this program on your Windows computer to format an external hard drive for Mac and PC.

Firstly, open the software to enter its main interface as follows. Here, please select the NTFS partition or HFS+ partition of external hard drive, and click 'Delete Partition' feature from the left action pane. If there are multiple partitions on the external disk, please select the disk and click 'Delete All Partitions' feature instead. After that, an unallocated space will be released.

Secondly, you can create one or more FAT32 partitions in unallocated space. Free web browser games for mac. Select the unallocated space and choose 'Create Partition' feature from the left side.

Then, you should choose 'FAT32' from the 'File System' option in the pop-out window. Meanwhile, you can set properties for this new partition and click 'OK' to go back to the main window of Partition Wizard.

At last, click 'Apply' button to make all changes performed.

Solution 2: Format External Hard Drive Windows 7/8/10 to exFAT

Firstly, please delete the NTFS or HFS+ partition in either MiniTool Partition Wizard or Windows Disk Management to release unallocated space. Then, you can create an exFAT partition with MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition by following steps introduced in the section Step 2: Create exFAT Partition with MiniTool Partition Wizard.

Once a FAT32 or exFAT partition is created on your external hard drive, you can share it on both Mac and Windows PC.

Partition Mac For Windows 10

Solution 3: Create One HFS+ Partition for Mac and One NTFS Partition for Windows

Alternatively, you can create 2 partitions on the external hard drive: one is for Mac, and the other is for Windows. As to size for each partition, it depends on your own demands. By this way, you can easily format an external hard drive for Mac and Windows.

Step 1: Create a NTFS Partition and a FAT32 Partition

Please run MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition, then delete all the original NTFS or HFS+ partition(s), and create a new NTFS partition as well as a FAT32 partition, and the latter will be formatted to HFS+ in Mac machine.

Then, select the external hard drive and choose 'Delete All Partitions' to create an unallocated space.

Mac Os Partition Tool

Here, select the unallocated space and choose 'Create Partition' feature from the left action pane.

Now, please specify partition label (Windows is recommended), partition type (primary or logical), drive letter, file system (NTFS), cluster size, and partition size (you can change the length of the handle to adjust partition size). Then, click 'OK' to continue.

Partition Type For Mac Os

Now, you can see a NTFS partition is created. Please use the same way to create a FAT32 partition labeled with Mac. At last, click 'Apply' button to make all changes performed.

Step 2: Format the FAT32 Partition to HFS+ Partition on Mac

Please go to Utilities → Disk Utility to get the window below:

Then, select the external hard drive and click 'Partition' tab on the top.

Now, find the FAT32 partition and format it to OS X Extended (Journaled), which is the desired HFS+. Finally, click 'Apply' button to make all changes performed.

Tip: You may receive the prompt 'The volume 'MAC' is not journaled. As a result it can not be resized'. Just ignore the message and click 'OK' button to continue.

After NTFS partition and HFS+ partition are created on your external hard drive, it can be shared between Mac and Windows PC.

Note: You might be unable to share all files saved on external drive since Windows doesn't support HFS+ partition while Mac doesn't support NTFS partition completely.

Bottom Line

Are you planning to format an external hard drive for Mac and PC? If yes, now try one of our methods to make external hard drive compatible with Mac and PC.

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Should you have any problem, just feel free to leave us a message in comment part below or send an email to [email protected].

Format Hard Drive for Mac and PC FAQ

How do I make my hard drive compatible with Mac and PC?
If you want your hard drive to be compatible with both Mac and PC, you should format the hard drive to the file system that is supported by both of these two operating systems. FAT32 and exFAT can meet your requirements.
What is the best hard drive format for Mac and PC?
Although both FAT32 and exFAT are compatible with Mac and PC, exFAT is a much better choice because it has fewer limitations. For example, it has a larger file size and partition size limits.
If you formatted your hard drive to exFAT with Apple's HFS Plus, Windows will not recognize the exFAT drive. You can consider using a third-party partition tool to format your hard drive to exFAT.
Windows can only read a Mac hard drive that is formatted to FAT32 or exFAT using third-party software. If the file system of the Mac hard drive is HFS+ or APFS, the drive will become unreadable in Windows.

Mac computers, whether you have an iMac, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, or another Mac device, all have a finite amount of space. How you use it depends how quickly, or not, that space fills up and whether you need to add more space — either internally (such as upgrading to an SSD), or connecting to one or more external hard drives.

One thing you may not know is that the Mac boot drive is already partitioned. In all fairly recent models, the boot drive contains a secret partition that includes the macOS Recovery System, some essential Mac first aid tools and an installer, should, for any reason, your macOS fail to install or reboot.

Before we go into how to partition a Mac hard drive or SSD, let's consider the benefits, and what you would need to do before partitioning a hard drive.

Benefits of making a partition in a Mac hard drive

One of the main reasons for implementing a partition is to run more than one operating system, such as macOS on one and Windows on the other. Or you can run two versions of the same OS in both sides of the partition, all from a single disk. Each disk drive, with its own volume, is found and treat separately in the Finder.

Once you know how to partition a hard drive on Mac, or how to partition an external hard drive on Mac, you can format and manage them separately, effectively giving you two computers within one. Although, if you want to use the other volume to run an earlier version of your Mac — which you can, using Time Machine, the volume for that side has to be twice as large as the space it requires.

What to do before partitioning a hard drive

Before going ahead with a partition, it's always useful to tidy your Mac up. Most users find they have way more clutter and junk than they think. Between old folders and documents, images and videos, apps taking up space, hundreds of email attachment downloads and local iOS backups, many people find they have at least 62GB of junk they simply don't need. We recommend downloading CleanMyMac X, a powerful Mac cleaner, ideal for decluttering your Mac before creating a partition.

How to partition a hard drive or SSD on Mac

There are several ways this can be done.

1. Use Boot Camp

Boot Camp is especially useful if you want to run Windows on your Mac. With Boot Camp comes Boot Camp Assistant, a handy app for partitioning your hard drive space so that one disk drive can run and operate macOS, and the other, Windows.

Following the on-screen instructions of this Mac app, you can partition your hard drive or SSD space to ensure that Windows will run smoothly on your Mac, almost as if it was operating on a native Windows PC or other device.

However, for those who don't want to partition Mac for that purpose, you can use Disk Utility.

2. Use Disk Utility

Disk Utility is another Mac application that will repair and, as needed, partition disk drive spaces.

As a Mac partition manager, it is a useful app that sits within your Utilities folder, inside your Applications folder.

Before starting a Mac partition exercise, it's worth fully backing-up the folder you want to copy using Carbon Copy Cloner. Another useful tool that gives you an instantly bootable copy of the drive you are going to partition, working on the assumption that if anything goes wrong during this process, you are going to lose everything that is on that hard drive. So with a backup, nothing can go wrong, and if it does, you can easily fix it.

Before partitioning:

  1. Clone the drive.
  2. Make sure the clone has worked and with your cloned drive you can boot this up from the startup menu.
  3. Plug the clone in and go to System Preferences > Startup Disk.
  4. Check the cloned drive works, and then you can partition without any worries.

Now you are ready to partition hard drive on Mac, starting with the following:

  1. Press Command-Shift-U or go to Utilities in the Applications folder.
  2. Double-click the Disk Utility application.
  3. In Disk Utility, select your Mac's internal drive (or an internal SSD).
  4. You should see two options: First Aid or Partition.
  5. Click Partition.
  6. Click the ‘+' below Partition Layout.
  7. Now a new Partition will appear, and you can change the size according to what you need.
  8. Give this new drive a name.
  9. If it hasn't worked exactly as you want, you can always click Revert to unpartition hard drive on Mac.
  10. Or, once you are happy with the size, click Apply. You may also be asked to click a lock symbol in the bottom left-hand corner to confirm everything.

But don't worry if you want to make changes down the road. Everything you have done is reversible, so you can change the size or repartition hard drive on Mac.

Once the partition is done (which doesn't take as long as you might imagine) you will have a completely new hard drive or internal SSD, identical to your original, except without anything in it. Upload anything you need, or use the cloned version to store everything that was in the original hard drive - which still exists - in this partitioned version.

Within Disk Utility, you have the option of increasing or decreasing the size, erasing altogether (just remember to backup anything you need first), which will restore the space lost in the partition to your primary hard drive. Always backup before making any changes to a partition.

And remember, before making a partition, clean up your Mac from all the junk it contains. The fastest and the safest way to do that is to use CleanMyMac X. Try it today to rid your system of unwanted files and enjoy improved performance.

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