What format should my drive be? And how do I change the format?

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The format of your drive will greatly affect the library performance. If you are having disk errors, it may be your drive needs reformatting. 

 

  • The most efficient format for Mac Users is Mac OS (Journaled) or APFS 
  • The most efficient format for Windows users is NTFS. 

 

 

Before changing your drive format, we suggest creating a backup of the contents that are stored on your samples drive. The process of changing the drive format erases the drives contents. 

 

 

How do I change my drive format (MAC) 

Open "disk utility", select the drive on the left hand side that you wish to formatted. 

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Click "Erase". After clicking "erase", you can then select the drive format. Choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

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How do I change my drive format (Windows) 

Find the drive in your file browser. Right click the drive and choose "Format".

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Under the drop down, select "File System", choose NTFS. Click Start

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8 comments

Date Votes
  • Ludovic Vandepoele

    Hi there,

    I already have some libraries on an exFat external SSD drive. Could you kindly confirm that copying everything to a temporary drive, re-formatting the SSD to NTFS and putting everything back on would not affect anything or consume another license?

    Thanks a lot for your answer and your great libraries !

    Ludovic

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  • Jack

    Hi Ludovic.

    I can confirm you can copy these files to a temporary drive then move it all back again once formatted to NTFS.

    Ensure the names / locations of the files are the same. That way Kontakt will link up automatically.

    Thanks

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  • Ludovic Vandepoele

    Hi,
    Good news.
    Thanks a lot for this very fast answer. Impressive!

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  • Jerome Begin

    What about the newer APFS for formatting on mac? I read that it is optimized for SSDs. Is it still best to use MacOS Journaled?

    Thanks!

    Jerome

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  • Rafael Simoes

    I would also love to know if this information is still the most accurate. Like Jerome said, is it better to use MacOS Journaled or APFS?

    Thanks allot.

     

    Rafael

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  • Sebastian Müller

    Would also like to know which format runs faster MacOS Journaled or APFS. 


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  • Erik Martines Sanches
    • Edited

    Just an opinion from a hobbyist but I'd like to install BBC Orchestra Discover (thanks for providing this freely) on an exFAT formatted SSD that I use in both Windows and Mac OS. Currently the Spitfire Audio app won't install it on an exFAT SSD.

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  • Adam Lasnik

    Hey Erik,

     

    FWIW, I formatted my external SSD in exFAT format and while Spitfire complains every time I try to install one of their Labs (and originally the BBCO Discover) it still let me do so after the warning, and everything's worked fine :)

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