LaCie Chromé User Manual - Mac
Op onal Forma ng and Par oning
You can use LaCie Setup Assistant to format your LaCie hard drive when it is first connected to a computer
(Windows or Mac). LaCie Setup Assistant helps you to quickly format the storage device according to your
needs.
Read the information below if you:
Aborted LaCie Setup Assistant while it was formatting.
Want to reformat your storage device after LaCie Setup Assistant has successfully completed.
Own a LaCie storage device that does not feature Setup Assistant (for example, LaCie USB keys or RAID
devices).
About file system formats
Before following the instructions to format your hard drive, review the hard drive file formats available on
your computer.
Mac
Mac OS Extended (HFS+): compatible with Mac only. Mac OS Extended refers to the file system used by
Mac OS X.
exFAT: compatible with Mac and Windows. exFAT is used as an alternative to FAT32 since it does not share
the same limitations. It is therefore an excellent cross-platform file system.
FAT32: compatible with Mac and Windows. A FAT32 partition can reach 2TB when formatted on a Mac. The
individual file size is limited to 4GB. FAT32 can affect your hard drive’s performance.
Mac file system formats
Use HFS+ if:
…you will be using the storage device on Macs only.
Use exFAT if:
…you will be using your storage device with both Windows and Mac computers.
Use FAT32 if:
…you will be using your storage device with Windows and Mac computers, and at least one of these
computers is incompatible with exFAT.
Windows
NTFS: since it is the native file system for Windows, volumes created in NTFS are read and write with
computers running Windows. Earlier versions of Mac OS X 10.5 or higher may read and write to the NTFS
partitions with the help of third-party drivers. There are two formats for NTFS, MBR and GPT. The maximum
volume size for MBR is 2TB while the more recent GPT format does not assign limits to file or partition sizes.
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LaCie Porsche Design Mobile Drive User Manual
10/30/15