- Minimum Hard Drive Space For Mac Os X High Sierra Download
- Minimum Hard Drive Space For Mac Os X Lion
- Minimum Hard Drive Space For Mac Os X Versions
Looking for a way to install and run OS X on an external hard drive? This can be useful for a couple of different reasons. Firstly, it allows you to run another copy of OS X without needing any additional Mac computer.
Also, since you can run a full copy of OS X on the external drive, it can be used for troubleshooting purposes on other Macs or it can be as a kind of virtual OS X. I’ve already written about how you can install OS X in VMware Fusion, but that takes up space on your Mac. Using an external drive, you can save space on your Mac, though it might be a bit slower if you are using USB 2.0.
In this article, I’ll walk you through the requirements and steps to install OS X onto an external hard drive.
Format External Hard Disk
At least 500 MB of space on your local hard drive to download the Parallels Desktop installation. Additional disk space is needed for the guest OS and future saved files. Note: Microsoft Windows 10 requires at least 16 GB of storage space. OS X 10.7 Lion and later versions offer easy access to free space on hard drive. Following steps can assist in checking the available space: Click on the Apple menu and then select ‘About this Mac. Oct 10, 2014 You’ll need at least 8 GB of free disk space in order to upgrade to OS X Yosemite. To see how much disk space you have: Click the Apple icon at the top left of your screen. Select “About This Mac.”. Click on “More info” and then “Storage.”.
The first thing you’re going to need to do is format the external hard drive properly. The file format has to be Mac OS X Journaled and you have to use the GUID partition map. To do this, open Disk Utility and connect the drive to your Mac.
Under External in the left hand menu, click on your external hard drive and then click on the Erase button. Make sure you backup any data before you erase the drive. When you click Erase, a dialog will pop up where you can configure some options.
Give your drive a name, choose OS X Extended (Journaled) for Format and GUID Partition Map for Scheme. It should only take a minute or two for the drive to be erased and reformatted. Now your drive is ready for OS X.
Install OS X
There are two ways you can install OS X on to your external hard disk: by reinstalling OS X from the OS X Utilities repair screen or by downloading OS X from the App Store and running the installer. I’ll show you both methods in case one isn’t working for you.
The easiest way is to download OS X from the App Store. Once you open the App Store, you’ll see a link on the right for the latest version of OS X (El Capitan as of this writing). Freeware web design software for mac os x.
Go ahead and click the Download button to start downloading the installer. Note that if you already have that version of OS X installed, you’ll see a popup message appear asking if you still want to continue or not. Just click Continue.
Once it has been downloaded, just double-click the installer, which will be located in the Applications folder.
Keep clicking past the license agreement, etc., until you get to the screen that asks you which disk to install OS X on. By default, it is set to MacBook.
Click on the Show All Disks button and you’ll see an icon for the different disks and partitions on the Mac. I named my external hard drive OS X and that shows up in the middle.
You can also tell it’s an external hard disk because it uses the icon with the orange hard drive. Click Continue and then follow the instructions to complete the installation. Note that your computer may restart during the install and you don’t have to do anything. OS X will automatically continue installing onto the external hard drive rather than booting up to your internal version of OS X.
At the end of this article, I’ll show you how to boot up to the external hard drive, so skip down if you ended up using the App Store method. Note that by default, the Mac will start booting up directly to the external hard drive until you change it.
The second method to install OS X is to restart the Mac and press and hold the COMMAND + R keys. This will load up OS X Recovery.
The OS X Utilities screen will appear and here you want to click on Reinstall OS X. Again, you’ll go through some basic screens, but when you get to the hard disk screen, click on Show All Disks again.
Using this method, you’ll have to login using your Apple ID and password so that the entire OS X installer can be downloaded off of Apple’s servers. Whichever method you choose, it will take anywhere from 15 to 30+ minutes to install OS X onto your external hard drive.
While OS X is installing, your computer will restart a couple of times. Note that when it finally boots into OS X, that is the version running off your external drive. To switch back and forth between the internal and external drive, you have to restart your computer and hold down the OPTION key.
When you do that, you should see at least four icons. In my case, I have five because I have Windows installed using Boot Camp. Anyway, the grey MacBook and Recovery 10.11.2 icons are for my internal OS X and the orange OS X and Recovery 10.11.3 are for the version installed on my external drive.
Use the arrow keys to select which drive to boot from and then simply press Enter. If you have a newer Mac and a USB drive that supports USB 3.0, everything should run fairly fast. Overall, it’s a fairly straight-forward process and took me less than an hour to get everything working. If you have any questions, feel free to comment. Enjoy!
Announced in June 2019 at WWDC, the long-awaited macOS Catalina will be the 16th major release for Apple's operating system. There are tons of new features to be shipped, covering everything from iPad compatibility (Catalyst makes it easy to port iPad apps to Mac) to security (Gatekeeper will require Apple-notarized Developer ID for apps) to entertainment (new apps for Podcasts, TV, and Music), besides the usual improvements to all the native software.
While macOS Catalina is scheduled to be released sometime around September, the public beta is already available, so everyone can try all the new functionality without the wait. Read through our step-by-step guide to learn how to install macOS Catalina public beta.
Is My Mac Compatible With macOS Catalina?
Regardless of whether you want to install the beta or wait for the official public release, one question will inevitably pop up in your head — is my Mac compatible with macOS Catalina? Good question! Let’s look at the Mac OS Catalina compatibility chart to find out.
List of macOS Catalina supported Macs
Overall, due to the numerous efficiency improvements under the hood, macOS Catalina supported Macs are nearly identical to those of macOS Mojave:
- MacBook (2015 or later)
- MacBook Air (2012 or later)
- MacBook Pro (2012 or later)
- iMac (2012 or later)
- iMac Pro (2017 or later)
- Mac Pro (2013 or later)
- Mac mini (2012 or later)
The only difference you might find is the new Mac OS Catalina requirements not covering Mac Pros ranging from 2010 to 2012. So unless you have that specific Mac Pro model you should be able to try the new operating system.
However, in case your Mac is on the older side, barely managing to load the macOS won’t result in a pleasant experience. For example, Apple specifies that running 4K as well as Dolby Atmos content will only be possible with Macs introduced in 2018 or later that boast 4K screens.
But don’t hurry to the Apple Store just yet. If watching videos in 4K is not an absolute necessity, you could simply optimize the Mac you have for faster performance and run macOS Catalina without a problem.
What are macOS Catalina storage requirements?
To run properly, macOS Catalina needs a considerable amount of disk space. It’s generally recommended to keep at least 15% of your main drive free. But remember, you’ll also need space for future macOS updates and all the new software that goes with Catalina. So you should think of freeing up storage way beforehand, while you’re still on Mojave or other older OS.
The general space goals to aim for here:
- 15–20 GB of free storage.
- 4 GB of RAM.
Upgrade smoothly: remove outdated system files
The best way to rise above the basic Mac OS Catalina requirements is to do a thorough scan of your Mac and purge all the useless data that you’ve accumulated over the years. Quite a hefty task if you choose to do it manually: your Mac has a ton of system files and invisible folders that require the use of Terminal to get to. Luckily, there's a software designed to take care of it all automatically.
CleanMyMac X is the easiest and the most thorough way to bring your Mac back to its pristine original state. In fact, the app is so helpful and intuitive that it was recognized as the “#1 Product of the Month” by Product Hunt.
Here are the kind of files you should try to get rid of:
- User and system cache files.
- System and user log files.
- Language files.
- Broken login items.
To do so with CleanMyMac X, simply:
- Download the free version of the app.
- In the sidebar, navigate to System Junk and hit Scan.
- Review Details and then Clean anything you don’t need.
Even though I’ve been using CleanMyMac X on a regular basis, the System Junk scan has revealed over 11 GB of files I no longer need. Imagine how much dead weight your Mac can carry!
Minimum Hard Drive Space For Mac Os X High Sierra Download
Maximize your storage space
![Minimum Hard Drive Space For Mac Os X Minimum Hard Drive Space For Mac Os X](https://images.idgesg.net/images/article/2018/03/mac-os-high-sierra-disk-utility-100752435-orig.jpg)
Once you clean your Mac from all the system and user-generated junk, you’ll notice improvements in responsiveness and speed right away. But it’s not only outdated files that slow your Mac down.
To hit all macOS Catalina system requirements, you need to have as much of your hard drive free as possible. This might include, for example, legitimate but long-forgotten documents you haven’t opened in years.
Minimum Hard Drive Space For Mac Os X Lion
The good news is you can see what’s taking up your hard drive capacity with a new feature in CleanMyMac X called Space Lens, which creates an interactive visual map of all your files and folders:
- Open up CleanMyMac X (or download for free here).
- Go to Space Lens under the Files tab.
- Hit Scan and wait for the process to finish.
- Explore all the interactive bubbles and remove the folders you no longer need.
With no extra system files or unused heavy folders dragging you down, your older Mac will become brand new again, agile enough to take on the new macOS Catalina as it becomes available this fall. Best of all, just one app — CleanMyMac X — can do it all for you.
Minimum Hard Drive Space For Mac Os X Versions
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