New hard drives and SSDs, including NVMe SSDs, need to be partitioned and formatted before the first use. macOS will normally prompt you when a blank drive is connected with the option to Initialize the drive.
Start by installing the hard drive or SSD (referred to as "drive") into the Plugable hard drive dock or drive enclosure and connect it to the computer using the provided cables and power supply if applicable. macOS will normally prompt you when a blank drive is connected with the option to Initialize the drive.
- Either select the Initialize button on the prompt, or select Go > Utilities > Disk Utility, either option will open the Disk Utility
- Select the external drive in the left column, then the Erase button to start the formatting process, please be sure this is the correct drive before formatting
- The Erase Drive dialog drop down lets us name the drive and select the file system format from a list, the defaults are recommended
- Select the Erase button to format the drive, this will take between a couple of seconds to minutes depending on the drive
- The newly formatted drive can be used as a Time Machine backup, or used as a standard storage drive