In fact, you have a couple of ways to do this: either using Disk Utility to format the drive before installing macOS or cloning your drive using a third-party tool.
macOS users can also install the OS onto a USB drive and work with the same installation that’s on your internal (and faster) drive. Linux users know that booting from a USB drive is a useful way to get into the OS. In short, we don’t recommend it, and it’s likely not supported. We also don’t know whether you’ll experience issues if you look to install an older OS you don’t own.
Though, if your Mac is based on Apple Silicon, you may find incompatibilities. In theory, there’s no reason why you couldn’t boot an older version of macOS, and Apple does offer ways to install older versions on a USB. Can I boot older versions of macOS from a USB drive? Our testing gave us no issues when using a USB 2.0 to USB-C connector, so you’re able to press your older USB drives into service. Am I able to use a USB connection other than USB-C? We recommend 16GB to give yourself enough “wiggle room” when it comes to the installation process. As such, you’ll need a large enough USB drive to store Big Sur. In our experience, you will not be able to do this.
Can I split an installation across multiple USB drives? Disk operations on the boot drive can be performed safely from a USB stick as well. Some flash drives have to be formatted first before you can store files on them. You can now run the operating system as normal and use this USB drive to boot up your Mac. Not every flash drive out there can be used with a Mac computer right out of the box. GParted is compatible with most Linux systems.Īlternatively, you can also use a GParted Live CD to format your USB key.For Intel Macs, restart and hold the Option key to enter into the boot selection dialog.įor both types of machines, use your keyboard’s arrow keys to select the USB drive from the list of bootable devices, click to confirm, and your USB drive will begin to boot.
This software will allow you to create partitions in the FAT16, FAT32, or NTFS format. Linux users can format their USB keys into FAT16 format, or FAT32 and NTFS by simply downloading and launching the GParted Live 32 Bit (ISO-Image) program. Give a title to this volume, and finalize by clicking on Apply. Then, back in the main window, choose the MS-DOS (FAT) option.
Mac OS users can format their USB keys into the FAT format in a few simple steps. Note: The q parameter stands for "quick format" and the x parameter will force the selected volume to dismount if needed. Type the following command, followed by Enter: For the purposes of this example, we have provided a command using the letter G but note that you should r eplace this letter with that which is assigned to your key.
How to format a USB using the Command Prompt (Windows)?
You'll see that selecting both the NTFS and FAT options has now become possible. Right-click on your USB drive and then choose Format.
Before beginning, it's important to choose which kind of file system you'd like to use.