New external ssd.

[hoody]

Hi all,
Getting ready for the jump from High Sierra to Mojave. I don't know if my mid 2013 macbook air with 4Gb of ram would be happy with going to Catalina or Big Sur. My time machine external drive gave up (won't mount in disc utility, so I bought a Samsung T5 2TB ssd. When I go to disc utility to format, I don't see APFS as a choice. The top one is Mac OS extended (journalled). Am I missing something here? Edited to say that I can't partition the drive either. Screen shot attached.

 

[chscag]

Hi Pete:

Not until you get to Big Sur will Time Machine allow formatting an external drive (spinner or SSD) to APFS. So for now, you will need to format it as HFS +.

Okay?

 

[MacInWin]

And you are formatting the wrong thing. Go to the hardware level where it says "Samsung Portable" and do a Partition there to get the APFS option for the drive.

 

[RadDave]

Hi all,
Getting ready for the jump from High Sierra to Mojave. I don't know if my mid 2013 macbook air with 4Gb of ram would be happy with going to Catalina or Big Sur. My time machine external drive gave up (won't mount in disc utility, so I bought a Samsung T5 2TB ssd. When I go to disc utility to format, I don't see APFS as a choice. The top one is Mac OS extended (journalled). Am I missing something here? Edited to say that I can't partition the drive either....................

Hi Pete - more information HERE on external drives for Time Machine (TM) - I have a number of Samsung T5s on my Catalina laptops formatted to HFS+ for TM backups, so Charlie's advice above applies. As to upgrading to a more recent macOS, below is a chart below (Source) indicating that your MBAir 2013 can certainly go to Catalina - do you want to go to Big Sur (BS)? Then may be on the 'fence', my early 2013 MBPro is not compatible w/ the BS upgrade. Dave

.

 

[hoody]

Hi Pete:

Not until you get to Big Sur will Time Machine allow formatting an external drive (spinner or SSD) to APFS. So for now, you will need to format it as HFS +.

Okay?

Hi Pete:

Not until you get to Big Sur will Time Machine allow formatting an external drive (spinner or SSD) to APFS. So for now, you will need to format it as HFS +.

Okay?

Thanks for that. I don't see HFS+ either. So is mac 0SX extended (journalled Ok?)

 

[hoody]

And you are formatting the wrong thing. Go to the hardware level where it says "Samsung Portable" and do a Partition there to get the APFS option for the drive.

Thanks jake,
I still don't see partition. It's greyed out, but as chscag says, I won't need apsf if I only end up going to Catalina which I may as well do now that it looks as though it'll work OK on this laptop.

 

[chscag]

Thanks for that. I don't see HFS+ either. So is mac 0SX extended (journalled Ok?)

Yeah, it's the same thing as HFS+, only a different way of saying it.

 

[hoody]

Hi Pete - more information HERE on external drives for Time Machine (TM) - I have a number of Samsung T5s on my Catalina laptops formatted to HFS+ for TM backups, so Charlie's advice above applies. As to upgrading to a more recent macOS, below is a chart below (Source) indicating that your MBAir 2013 can certainly go to Catalina - do you want to go to Big Sur (BS)? Then may be on the 'fence', my early 2013 MBPro is not compatible w/ the BS upgrade. Dave

.
View attachment 33802

Thanks Dave. I've had a look at the link you supplied and I think I'll go to Catalina. Now for the time machine back up.

 

[hoody]

Yeah, it's the same thing as HFS+, only a different way of saying it.

Phew, I was starting to sweat a bit there, thinking I'd done something wrong... as usual. Thanks.

 

[hoody]

I'll start a new thread for the Catalina back up. Thanks to all for your help.