Best Network Hard Drive Software You Can

Luis Chavez is a former Lifewire writer and a System Administrator with 5 years experience writing about technology for end users.

Its common to map a network drive on Mac or Windows computers in the corporate environment, but you can also set one up in a home environment with multiple devices that need access to the same information.

While the steps may vary slightly based on the version of macOS youre using, they should generally be the same across all versions of the OS.

Instead of downloading or copying the same data to all your devices, youd save this data in a single folder, then share this folder with other devices.

Once you have shared the location of this data via a UNC path, you can then map the network drive to all your devices with a few simple steps.

Enter the path for the network drive youd like to map and click Connect.

If you want to ensure the previously mapped drive remains after a reboot, you must enable automounting via Login items under your user account preferences.

Learning how to format an external hard drive Mac is essential.

Because saving all your data on the Cloud is nice and all, but physical storage is still popular.

Especially if you dont have a stable internet connection or if most of your files are large.

Nowadays, all new Macs come with the operating system preinstalled on APFS, as this system is optimized for use with SSD and flash storage drives.

However, you wont be able to use this system with Time Machine.

If you have an older Mac, though, choosing the HFS is your best bet.

This choice is more appropriate for USB flash drives, although you can still use it for SDD and HDD units too.

If you really have to share the drive between Mac and Windows machines, thats your best option though.

This format should be avoided at all costs unless youre dealing with a really old Windows computer, which you really have to use in parallel with your Mac system.

Best Network Hard Drive Software You Can

While there are data recovery software you can use if you lost data, it is always better to prevent.

Then, on the top side under the Disk Utility, click on the Erase button.

Thats it After the process is complete, you can either start using the drive or choose to create partitions on it.

Time Machine, however, gives you the possibility to create an automatic backup of the data on your hard drive before formatting it.

At this point, the system will run an automatic backup two minutes after youve clicked on the Use Disk button, or you can proceed with the formatting if the hard disk is empty.

Whether its your wedding pictures or your bachelors degree thesis, chances are you want to get that data back as quickly as possible.

This app is Apples backup feature present on the newer systems.

If you followed the steps above before formatting the hard drive with Time Machine and allowed the app to execute the backup, then there are high chances that you can recover any lost data without too much hassle.

The software will now scan the selected drive and display all retrieved data in an easy-to-scour list.

The Disk Utility allows you to format the desired drive to the desired system in a blink of an eye.

Backing up the data on your drive with Time Machine also allows you to avoid the recovery hassle.

Click the link to know how you can remove write protection on USBs and hard drives.

Best Network Hard Drive For Mac