Partitioning and formatting my brand new 2Tr WD Elements for Mac and PC

WD External Drives External Drives for Mac
1

I want to do the following with my new Elements:

Create partitions on the external drive to clone my entire system for my Sierra MacBook Pro using Time Machine, AND another partition to clone my entire Windows 10 PC using disk management. I also want to create one or 2 more partitions for Mac and PC files. Can I do all this?

2

Hello,

Yes, you can create several partitions on the drive but be aware that creating more than one partition might be a little risky in case of a drive failure there is always a chance you might loose all the partitions at once.

3

Disk Utility allows you to create HFS, HFS+ FAT and EXFAT partitions on a single hard drive. Just navigate to Disk Utility << Partition and click + to add a new partition. Name the partition, define the size of the new partition, Format type (here you can switch from HFS, FAT and EXFAT). Further, resize the partitions using sliders. When all is confirmed you can push the Apply button to make changes.

Useful tip: If you want to have more than 2 partitions on the same external hard drive (perhaps 4 or more) then I recommend you go for partition manager tools since Disk Utility won’t be sufficient alone to manage all the partitions and free spaces.