What Is a File System? First, before we go any further, let’s clarify what a file system is. A file system is a piece of software that controls how data on a media is stored and retrieved. A file system manages operations such as copying, moving, and deleting files on a drive. A file system is different from an operating system – in a sense, a file system runs atop an operating system and depends on it for many operations with the underlying hardware.
Each of the major operating systems (e.g. Windows, MacOS, Linux) can work with various file systems (natively or through third-party tools).
Paragon Rescue Kit for Mac allows to create a bootable recovery USB-flash. Or files needed, undelete partitions, configurate your network, fix boot problems. NTFS: The NT File System (NTFS) is the file system that modern Windows versions use by default. HFS+: The Hierarchical File System (HFS+) is the file system modern macOS versions use by default. APFS: The proprietary Apple file system developed as a replacement for HFS+, with a focus on flash drives, SSDs, and encryption. APFS was released with.
How Do You Plan to Use Your USB Drive? Basically, the most important considerations regarding your choice of a file system for your USB drive are which operating systems you plan to use it with and how large the files you will most likely transfer are. If you will be using your USB media mostly on Windows devices, you can go with FAT32, exFAT, or NTFS. FAT32 and NTFS run with Linux, too, but exFAT requires additional tools. If you will be using the drive on Linux devices only, you can add its native EXT 2, 3, or 4 to the mix. As for MacOS, it can natively run FAT 32, works with exFAT, too, but you will need additional tools for NTFS, and its native file system is HFS+ (and the latest APFS), not EXT. As you see, FAT 32 and to some extent NTFS, are present on all major OSes.
They are not interchangeable and have their differences, as I will explain next – the main point here is the file size of the files you will be transferring because FAT 32 is limited to 4GB per file. EXT 2, 3, and 4 There are really many file systems out there, and if you are curious, you can try a few of them before you land on the familiar ones. However, your choices for a USB file system basically boil down to these:. NTFS.
NTFS, short for NT File System, is the default file system for Windows partitions. NTFS supports journaling, large file sizes, file compression, long file names, access control, etc. If you are functioning in a Windows-only environment, it’s safe to go with NTFS. Linux can also handle NTFS, and MacOS reads it but needs third party tools to write, so even if you are not in a Windows only environment, it’s still a good choice. FAT32, or File Allocation Table 32, is the file system that typically comes preinstalled on a USB drive. It was the Windows standard before NTFS.
FAT32 is slower than NTFS, less secure, and has a 4GB limit per file, but it is widely recognized by all major operating systems. If you will be using the USB drive in a highly heterogeneous environment, and portability is your main concern, FAT32 is your option. ExFAT, or extended File Allocation Table, is the newer version of FAT32. It’s lightweight but doesn’t have journaling. It’s compatible with Microsoft and MacOS but needs additional tools with Linux.
It doesn’t have the 4GB limit per file restriction like FAT32. The Hierarchical File System (HFS+) is the default file system in the macOS world. If you are going to use your USB drive on Mac devices mainly, choose this file system. HFS+ can be used with Windows and Linux, but if you need a multi-OS file system, you definitely have better choices. EXT 2, 3, and 4. The extended file system is the native for Linux.
Similarly to HFS+, you can use it with the other operating systems but it’s not your best option. Use this file system if you are using the USB device on Linux computers mainly. Most of these USB file systems run with multiple operating systems – e.g. Windows, macOS, Linux, etc., – so usually your choice isn’t limited to just one USB file system.
If you don’t have large files to deal with, you have even more options. If speed of transfer isn’t a top priority either, there are even more choices. And if it turns out your first choice of a USB file system wasn’t the best, you can always reformat the drive, provided there is no valuable data on it, of course.
I bought a Macbook Air yesterday after Dell lost my laptop from their service centre last month. And among the first few things I did was to dual boot Mac OS X with Ubuntu Linux. I’ll cover up Linux installation on Macbook in later articles as first we need to learn how to create a bootable Ubuntu USB drive for Mac in OS X. While it is fairly easy to create a bootable USB in Ubuntu or in Windows, it is not the same story in Mac OS X.
This is why the official Ubuntu guide suggest to use a disk rather than USB for live Ubuntu in Mac. Considering my Macbook Air neither has a CD drive nor do I possess a DVD, I preferred to create a live USB in Mac OS X.
Create a Bootable Ubuntu USB Drive in Mac OS X As I said earlier, creating a bootable USB in Mac OS X is a tricky procedure, be it for Ubuntu or any other bootable OS. But don’t worry, following all the steps carefully will have you going. Let’s see what you need to for a bootable USB: Step 1: Format the USB drive Apple is known for defining its own standards and no surprises that Mac OS X has its own file system type known as Mac OS Extended. So the first thing you would need to do is to format your USB drive in Mac OS Extended format. To format the USB drive, plug in the USB key. Go to Disk Utility program from Launchpad (A rocket symboled icon in the bottom plank).
In Disk Utility, from the left hand pane, select the USB drive to format. Click the Partition tab in the right side pane. From the drop-down menu, select 1 Partition. Name this drive anything you desire. Next, change the Format to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) The screenshot below should help you. There is one last thing to do before we go with formatting the USB. Click the Options button in the right side pane and make sure that the partition scheme is GUID Partition Table. When all is set to go, just hit the Apply button.
It will give you a warning message about formatting the USB drive. Of course hit the Partition button to format the USB drive. Step 2: Download Ubuntu Of course, you need to download ISO image of Ubuntu desktop. Since you are using a Macbook Air, I suggest you to download the 64 Bit version of whichever version you want. Ubuntu 14.04 is the latest LTS version, and this is what I would recommend to you. Step 3: Convert ISO to IMG The file you downloaded is in ISO format but we need it to be in IMG format. This can be easily done using command tool.
Open a terminal, either from Launchpad or from the Spotlight, and then use the following command to convert the ISO to IMG format: hdiutil convert -format UDRW -o /Path-to-IMG-file /Path-to-ISO-file Normally the downloaded file should be in /Downloads directory. So for me, the command is like this: hdiutil convert -format UDRW -o /Downloads/ubuntu-14.10-desktop-amd64 /Downloads/ubuntu-14.10-desktop-amd64.iso You might notice that I did not put a IMG extension to the newly converted file.
It is fine as the extension is symbolic and it is the file type that matters not the file name extension. Also, the converted file may have an additional.dmg extension added to it by Mac OS X.
Don’t worry, it’s normal. Step 4: Get the device number for USB drive The next thing is to get the device number for the USB drive.
Run the following command in terminal: diskutil list It will list all the ‘disks’ currently available in the system. You should be able to identify the USB disk by its size. To avoid confusion, I would suggest that you should have just one USB drive plugged in.
In my case, the device number is 2 (for a USB of size 8 GB): /dev/disk2 When you got the disk number, run the following command: diskutil unmountDisk /dev/diskN Where N is the device number for the USB you got previously. So, in my case, the above command becomes: diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk2 The result should be: Unmount of all volumes on disk2 was successful.
Step 5: Creating the bootable USB drive of Ubuntu in Mac OS X And finally we come to the final step of creating the bootable USB drive. We shall be using which is a very powerful and must be used with caution. Therefore, do remember the correct device number of your USB drive or else you might end up corrupting Mac OS X.
Use the following command in terminal: sudo dd if=/Path-to-IMG-DMG-file of=/dev/rdiskN bs=1m Here, we are using dd (copy and convert) to copy and convert input file (if) IMG to diskN. I hope you remember where you put the converted IMG file, in step 3. For me the command was like this: sudo dd if=/Downloads/ubuntu-14.10-desktop-amd64.dmg of=/dev/rdisk2 bs=1m As we are running the above command with super user privileges (sudo), it will require you to enter the password. Similar to Linux, you won’t see any asterisks or something to indicate that you have entered some keyboard input, but that’s the way Unix terminal behaves. Even after you enter the password, you won’t see any immediate output and that’s normal. It will take a few minutes for the process to complete.
Step 6: Complete the bootable USB drive process Once the dd command finishes its process, you may see a dialogue box saying: The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer. Everything is just fine. Just don’t click either of Initialize, Ignore or Eject just now. Go back to the terminal. You’ll see some information about the last completed process. For me it was: 1109+1 records in 1109+1 records out bytes transferred in 77.611025 secs (14984164 bytes/sec) Now, in the terminal use the following command to eject our USB disk: diskutil eject /dev/diskN N is of course the device number we have used previously which is 2 in my case: diskutil eject /dev/disk2 Once ejected, click on Ignore in the dialogue box that appeared previously.
Now your bootable USB disk is ready. Remove it from the system. Step 7: Checking your newly created bootable USB disk Once you have completed the mammoth task of creating a live USB of USB in Mac OS X, it is time to test your efforts. Plugin the bootable USB and reboot the system.
At start up when the Apple tune starts up, press and hold option (or alt) key. This should present you with the available disks to boot in to.
I presume you know what to do next. For me it showed tow EFI boot: I selected the first one and it took me straight to Grub screen: I hope this guide helped you to create a bootable USB disk of Ubuntu for Mac in OS X. We’ll see how to dual boot Ubuntu with OS X in next article.