N
Common Ground News

Can I use a Seagate external hard drive with a Mac?

Author

David Ramirez

Updated on March 06, 2026

Can I use a Seagate external hard drive with a Mac?

Newer Seagate and LaCie branded external drives come preformatted with the exFAT file system, which allows it to be used on both Mac and Windows without reformatting the drive. Also, drives that will be used for storage need to be formatted.

Regarding this, why can't I use my Seagate on Mac?

One of the reasons you can't add files to a Seagate hard drive on your Mac is that it's formatted with NTFS. On macOS, you can only read disks in this format, not write to them. This will prevent you from adding, changing, or deleting files. Fortunately, Seagate offers the Paragon Driver for macOS.

Additionally, can I plug my external hard drive into a Mac? External hard drives, thumb drives, USB drives, Flash memory cards, and devices like iPod are examples of storage devices that you can connect to your Mac using Thunderbolt, USB, or FireWire cables, or connect wirelessly using Bluetooth. If your Mac has a USB-C port, see About USB-C.

Secondly, is Seagate good for Mac?

The Seagate Slim for Mac is a good, mainstream portable drive for iMacs and MacBooks. It fits easily in a pocket and comes with USB 3.0 so it will work fine with your recent vintage MacBook Air. PCMag editors select and review products independently.

How do I know if my Mac has a Seagate external hard drive?

Open Finder > Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility

If the drive is not detected in Disk Utility then see the System Information/System Profiler section. If you are using macOS 10.13 or higher then click view in the upper left and select “Show All Devices” which allows you to see both the disk as well as volumes.

How do I make my Seagate writable on Mac?

Mac
  1. Make sure the storage device is connected to and mounted on the computer.
  2. Select Go > Utilities in the Finder menu bar.
  3. In the Utilities folder, double-click Disk Utility.
  4. Select the Seagate drive in the left column.
  5. Click the Erase tab.
  6. Choose a format from the drop-down window.
  7. Enter a name for the volume.

Can only read Seagate on Mac?

Most Seagate external drives are read-only on Mac because they are pre-fomatted with Windows NT file system (NTFS) by the manufacturer. So your Seagate HDD is read only on Mac, which affects Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Touch, Portable drive, and Slim. However, macOS disabled the NTFS write support by default.

What is the best external hard drive for a Mac?

  • Best External Hard Drive For Mac Overall: Sabrent Rocket XTRM-Q 2TB Thunderbolt 3 External SSD.
  • Best USB-C External SSD: LaCie Mobile SSD.
  • Best High-Capacity Portable External Hard Drive: WD 5TB My Passport Ultra.
  • Best High-Capacity Desktop External Hard Drive: G-Technology 14TB G-DRIVE.

Why is my Seagate hard drive not recognized?

If your Seagate external hard drive is blinking but is not detected by your PC, then you can try to unplug it from the USB port and should plug it into a different USB port. Besides, you can reboot your PC and try to connect your Seagate external hard drive to the computer again.

Why is my Mac not reading my external hard drive?

If you've plugged in a flash drive or USB drive and it's not showing up on your Mac at all, it could be down to a faulty cable or USB port. Try a different USB cable — even cables with no visible defects can fail. Try connecting the hard drive to a different USB port — it could be a hardware issue.

How do I fix a corrupted Seagate External Hard Drive Mac?

Fix a corrupted external hard drive by formatting
  1. Open Disk Utility through Finder and Applications.
  2. Select the external hard drive at the left side.
  3. Click on the Erase button, or right-click the external hard drive and choose Erase from the options.
  4. Give the external hard drive a name.
  5. Choose ExFAT as the Format.

Is Seagate or WD better for Mac?

To sum it up, both brands offer good value for money however, Western Digital is known for its great build quality and durability. On the other hand, Seagate offers almost the same performance and reliability plus a larger storage option of up to 14TB.

What is the best backup for Mac?

How to back up your Mac 2021
  • The free, built-in solution: Time Machine.
  • Affordable cloud backup: Backblaze.
  • Secure backup for multiple devices: iDrive.
  • Beginner friendly: Carbonite.
  • Bring your own storage: MSP360 Cloud Backup for Mac.
  • Easy to understand physical backup: Carbon Copy Cloner.
  • Painless and easy backup: SuperDuper!

How do I backup my entire Mac?

1. Click the Time Machine symbol in your top toolbar (it looks like a curving arrow pointing backward, surrounding a clock face) and click "Open Time Machine Preferences" 2. Click "Select Backup Disk" (it may also say "Select Disk," or "Add or Remove Backup Disk").

Do I need a special external hard drive for Mac?

In general, you don't need special Mac-only hardware stuff anymore. Hard drives, RAM, peripherals, etc. are all fairly generally universally compatible; even the stuff that's generally seen as "Mac" (i.e., FireWire and now Thunderbolt) is Windows- and Linux-compatible and will generally work fine.

How do I backup my entire Mac to an external hard drive?

How to Backup a Mac to an External Hard Drive Using Acronis True Image
  1. Open the Acronis True Image 2020 software and click "Back Up"
  2. Your whole Mac will be pre-selected as the source.
  3. Click on Backup destination and select the external hard drive.
  4. Once you've set the destination, click Backup and you're done!

Are all hard drives compatible with Mac?

Any external hard drive will work with PCs or Macs, as long as the connectors are there (Firewire, USB, etc.) It doesn't matter how the drive is formatted out of the box, since you can re-format any way you like. Formatting in HFS (Mac OS Extended) or FAT32 or NTFS-3G can be done with the Mac OS X Disk Utility.

How do I use Seagate on Mac?

Simply plug in the power, plug in the USB cable, and the drive should appear in (My) Computer/This PC and Windows Explorer/File Explorer. For Mac, you will need to reformat the drive prior to using it because it will be read-only on a Mac, which means you will be unable to copy or move data to the drive.

Is USB-C the same as Thunderbolt?

Thunderbolt 3 ports look exactly the same as USB-C ports, and indeed, the connector is physically the same from a plug-in perspective. Indeed, Thunderbolt 3 is a superset of USB-C; you can plug a USB-C-only device into a Thunderbolt 3 port on a computer, and it'll work just fine.

Does Apple have an external hard drive?

On its website, Apple does sell and recommend the G-Technology (made by Western Digital) and LaCie external hard drives. The drives are USB-C ready and USB-A compatible, and they state that it is Mac-ready out of the box. And you can buy it with up to 4TB of space.

What external hard drives are compatible with Mac and PC?

Best External Drives for Mac and PC Interchangeable
  • G-Technology Portable External Hard Drive 2TB.
  • WD 2TB Elements Portable External Hard Drive.
  • Samsung T5 Portable SSD.

How do I make my external hard drive compatible with Mac without losing data?

Answer: A: Answer: A: Open Disk Utility, select your drive from the left side list, then click on the Enable Journaling icon in the toolbar. This will do what you want without losing anything.

What do I do when my external hard drive is not detected?

What to Do When Your External Hard Drive Won't Show Up
  1. Make Sure It's Plugged In and Powered On.
  2. Try Another USB Port (or Another PC)
  3. Update Your Drivers.
  4. Enable and Format the Drive in Disk Management.
  5. Clean the Disk and Start From Scratch.
  6. Remove and Test the Bare Drive.
  7. Our Favorite External Hard Drives.

Related Documentation

What is another word for heavily?

What does limited warranty deed mean?

What is a spectrum account?

Can I use a Seagate external hard drive with a Mac?