Formatting Drives
You can use any 2.5” SSD or HDD with Blackmagic MultiDock. New drives need to be formatted
so your computer can read and write to the them. Your Blackmagic MultiDock formats drives
using the HFS+ and exFAT formats. These disk formats allow large file sizes and long video
clips captured as single files.
HFS+
This format is also known as Mac OS Extended and is natively supported by Mac OS. HFS+
supports “journaling” which means your data is more likely to be recovered in the rare event of
corruption, or a hardware or software malfunction.
ExFAT
This format is supported natively by Mac OS and Windows. ExFAT does not support journaling
which means data is less likely to be recovered in the event of corruption, or a hardware or
software malfunction.
You can format drives at any time, even if you already have data written on them. However,
formatting a drive deletes all its data so be sure to back up anything important on your drive
before it is formatted.
Formatting your Drives on Mac OS
The Disk Utility application included with Mac OS can format a drive in the HFS+ or
exFAT formats.
1
Go to applications/utilities and launch Disk Utility.
2
On the left of the window you’ll see a list of icons for your connected drives. Click on
the disk icon for your new drive.
3
Select the ‘erase’ tab in Disk Utility’s top menu.
4
Type a ‘name’ for the new volume.
5
Select Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or exFAT from the ‘format’ drop down menu and
then click ‘erase’. Your new drive will quickly be formatted and made ready for use with
Blackmagic MultiDock.
Use Disk Utility on Mac OS to format, or erase, your drive
in the Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or exFAT format.
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