How to Add an External Hard Drive to a Computer

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This wikiHow teaches you how to select, connect, and format an external hard drive on your Windows or Mac computer.

Table of Contents

Steps

Select external hard drive

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You need to know how to add an external hard drive to your computer. While some external hard drives can be used as soon as they are plugged into a computer’s available USB port, most hard drives need to be formatted to suit the specific file system on the machine before proceeding. customary.

• The formatting process is quite quick, you can proceed through the built-in settings on the machine.

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Check the connection of the computer. Most computers have a rectangular USB 3.0 port located on the side or front of the case, however Macs and some Windows computers manufactured by Microsoft today use a USB-C connection:

• USB 3.0 — Rectangular port found on most computers manufactured before 2017. Most external hard drives use a USB 3.0 connector.
• USB-C — The oval port found on MacBooks and some Microsoft laptops. If your device uses a USB-C port, you’ll need to purchase a USB 3.0 to USB-C adapter or find an external hard drive with a USB-C cable.

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Consider memory requirements. External hard drives typically range in size from 512 GB to several TB. You need to buy a hard drive with a larger capacity than you need.

• In general, a 1 TB (1024 GB) hard drive is not much more expensive than a 512 GB capacity. Memory tends to be more expensive (for example, a 2 TB hard drive costs a lot less than two 1 TB hard drives).

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Choose between a traditional hard drive and a solid state drive. Solid state drives (SSDs) are significantly faster than traditional external hard drives, but at the same time more expensive. However, if your purpose is to run the operating system or edit software on an external hard drive, an SSD will be better than a traditional hard drive.

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You need to know which brand to choose. Memory is not expensive, but we should still buy it from a reputable manufacturer. Here are some popular external hard drive manufacturers: ^[1]

• Western Digital
• Adata
• Buffalo
• Seagate
• Samsung

Luigi Oppido

Computer repair technician

Luigi Oppido is the owner and operator of Pleasure Point Computers in Santa Cruz, California. He has over 25 years of experience in general computer repair, data recovery, antivirus and upgrade.

Luigi Oppido
Computer repair technician

Our experts say: When choosing an external hard drive, you should buy from a well-known drive manufacturer like Seagate or Western Digital. Don’t be fooled and spend money on hard drives with fancy exteriors but low quality insides. If you plan to back up important information to this drive, make sure this is an effective choice.

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Buy an external hard drive that fits your requirements. After purchasing the drive from a computer store or online commerce site, you can proceed with the installation on your Windows or Mac computer.

Installing an external hard drive on Windows

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Find your computer’s USB port. A USB 3.0 or USB-C port is usually located on the side of the body, but desktop users can find a USB port on the front or side of the case.

• Make sure you plug the external hard drive into the USB port on the computer itself, and not the hub or the keyboard USB port.

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Plug one end of the external hard drive cable into the USB port. The end of the USB 3.0 cable will only fit into the port in one direction, and with a USB-C connection, it will fit no matter how you plug it in.

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Plug the other end of the cable into the external hard drive. The other end of the cable is usually a proprietary connection that only fits into one port on an external hard drive.

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Open File Explorer

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. Click the File Explorer app with the folder icon at the bottom of your desktop.

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

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Click This PC on the left side of the window. However, you may need to scroll up or down in the left pane to find this option.

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Right-click the external hard drive’s name below the “Devices and drives” heading. A menu will drop down.

• If there’s nothing under the “Devices and drives” heading, you’ll need to double-click the title to expand it.

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Click the Format option located in the drop-down menu. The Format window will open.

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Click the “File system” drop-down box. A menu will drop down.

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Select the file system. Click one of the following options in the drop-down menu:

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

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Click the Start button at the bottom of the window. Windows will begin to format the external drive.

• If the drive belongs to someone before it reaches you, consider unchecking the “Quick format” box first. As such, the formatting process will take significantly longer, but the hard drive will be completely overwritten.

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Click OK at the bottom of the window that appears. The Format window will close; so the hard drive has been formatted.

Install an external hard drive on Mac

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Find the USB port on your Mac. The USB port is usually located on the side of the body (MacBook) or behind the monitor (iMac).

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Plug one end of the external hard drive cable into the USB port. The end of the USB 3.0 cable will only fit into the port in one direction, and with a USB-C connection, it will fit no matter how you plug it in.

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Plug the other end of the cable into the external hard drive. The other end of the cable is usually a proprietary connection that only fits into one port on an external hard drive.

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Open Spotlight

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. Click the Spotlight app with the magnifying glass icon in the upper-right corner of the screen.

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Open Disk Utility. Type disk utility and then double-click Disk Utility when the option appears in the search results. The Disk Utility window will pop up.

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Select the external hard drive. In the upper left of the Disk Utility window, click the external hard drive’s name.

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Click the Erase tab at the top of the Disk Utility window. A window will pop up.

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Click the “Format” drop-down box in the middle of the pop-up window.

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Select the file system. Click one of the following options:

• Mac OS Extended (Journaled) — Select this option if you only want to use the external hard drive on your Mac.
• ExFAT — Select this option if you want to use the external hard drive on both Windows and Mac computers.

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Click Erase at the bottom of the window.

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Click Erase when prompted. Your Mac will begin to format the drive. Once the format is complete, you can continue to use the drive as you please.

Advice

• Many other devices (besides computers) that allow an external hard drive (for example, game consoles) will provide the format in the Storage section of the Settings menu.
• Don’t forget to safely disconnect the external hard drive before unplugging the cable from the computer. This operation is to ensure that the data on the hard drive is saved.

Warning

• Not all file systems are compatible with every computer. If you choose to use a proprietary file system (for example, NTFS for Windows) you will get an error when you try to add this external hard drive to a computer running another operating system.
• Formatting will erase all content on the drive.

This wikiHow teaches you how to select, connect, and format an external hard drive on your Windows or Mac computer.

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