Formatting an SSD Drive with Mac OS X: A Quick Guide

Here’s a guide to our media studio's best practices for formatting solid-state hard drives (SSD). Creative professionals often need to wipe a drive before using it for the first time, or reformat a drive for renewed use after backing up data to another storage device or a cloud storage provider.

1. Plug in the SSD Drive

We mainly use Samsung T9 Portable SSDs, which are ultra-fast and reliable for creative workflows. These drives offer excellent transfer speeds for handling large photo, video, and animation files. For anyone looking to upgrade, this is a fantastic option!

2. Open Disk Utility

Once the drive is plugged in, open Disk Utility from your Applications folder. Disk Utility is the native Mac OS X tool for managing external drives.

3. Select the Drive You Want to Format

In Disk Utility, find your SSD in the sidebar. (Be careful to select the correct drive if you have multiple devices connected!)

4. Select “Erase”

Click the “Erase” button at the top of the Disk Utility window. This is where you’ll set up the drive for formatting.

Retitle the name of the drive to your desired name:

5. Choose Your Settings

• Name: Give your drive a name. We often name drives according to the project or usage (e.g., “ProjectX_Backup”).

• Format: For cross-platform compatibility, we recommend exFAT if you’ll be using the drive with both Mac and Windows. For Mac-only use, APFS (Apple File System) is ideal.

• Scheme: Select GUID Partition Map for most modern SSDs.

Tip: Make sure the drive is backed up elsewhere before erasing, as this process will delete all data on the drive.

6. Erase the Drive

Click the “Erase” button again, confirming your settings and the drive name. Disk Utility will wipe and reformat the drive.

7. Wait for the Formatting to Complete

It may take a few moments for the drive to be erased and reformatted. Once it’s finished, click “Done.” Your SSD is now ready for fresh storage and usage!

We hope this helps some fellow creatives! We mostly wrote this to remind ourselves of the steps for those times we need to reformat our drives. We've loved transitioning away from spinning hard drives to SSDs. These drives have become our go-to for their speed and reliability, making them perfect for photo, video, illustration, and animation projects.

If you have any questions about working with multiple SSDs for creative work, feel free to reach out—we’re always happy to talk shop!