LaCie d2 Thunderbolt 2 User Manual - page 29

LaCie d2 Thunderbolt 2 | USB 3.0 User Manual

29

OPTIONAL FORMATTING AND PARTITIONING

Standard LaCie storage devices will prompt you to run LaCie Setup Assistant when they are first connected to a

PC or Mac. LaCie Setup Assistant helps you to quickly format the storage device according to your needs.

Please read the information below carefully if you:

Abort LaCie Setup Assistant while it is formatting.

■

Wish to reformat your storage device after LaCie Setup Assistant has successfully completed.

■

Own a LaCie storage device that does not feature Setup Assistant.

■

ABOUT FILE SYSTEM FORMATS

Mac

You can customize the storage device by reformatting and/or partitioning it with separate file system formats.

For optimal performance in Mac OS environments, format and partition the storage device as one large Mac OS

Extended volume.

Mac OS Extended (HFS+): Mac OS Extended refers to the file system used by Mac OS X. HFS+ represents an

optimization of the older HFS file system by using hard disk space more efficiently. With HFS+, you are no

longer limited by block size.

FAT32: FAT32 is an older format with a maximum single file size limited to 4GB. Since performance is far from

optimal, use FAT32 only if you are going to share your LaCie storage device between Mac and Windows

computers.

See the table below for a comparison between HFS+ and FAT32.

Mac File System Formats

Use HFS+ if:

…you will be using the storage device on Macs only. Performance is far superior when compared to FAT32.

HFS+ is NOT compatible with Windows.

Use FAT32 if:

…you will be using your storage device with both Windows and Mac computers.