You can customize the storage device by reformatting and/or partitioning it with separate file system formats. For optimal performance in Mac OS environments, format and partition the storage device as one large Mac OS Extended volume.

Mac OS Extended (HFS+): Mac OS Extended refers to the file system used by Mac OS X. HFS+ represents an optimization of the older HFS file system by using hard disk space more efficiently. With HFS+, you are no longer limited by block size.

FAT32: FAT32 is an older format with a maximum single file size limited to 4GB. Since performance is far from optimal, use FAT32 only if you are going to share your LaCie storage device between Mac and Windows computers.

See the table below for a comparison between HFS+ and FAT32.

FAT32: FAT is an acronym for File Allocation Table, which dates back to the beginnings of DOS programming. Originally, FAT was only 16 bits, but after the second release of Windows 95 it was upgraded to 32 bits, hence the name FAT32.

FAT32 is supported by Windows 7 and Windows 8 but the volume size is limited to 32GB and the individual file size is limited to 4GB.

NTFS: This acronym stands for New Technology File System, and it is the native file system for Windows 7 and Windows 8. NTFS offers several features that are not available with FAT32: file compression, encryption, permissions, auditing, and mirroring drives. The minimum supported volume size for NTFS is 10MB with a maximum of 2TB when initialized in the MBR format. For greater flexibility, use the GPT format with NTFS to remove limits on file and partition sizes. Volumes created in NTFS are native read and write for Windows 7 and Windows 8. Mac OS X 10.5 or higher can read and write to the NTFS partitions with the help of third-party drivers.

See the table below for a comparison of NTFS and FAT32.

The steps listed below will help you to format and partition a storage device. For more information on choosing the optimal file format, refer to About File System Formats.

1. Make sure the storage device is connected to and mounted on the computer.
2. Right-click on Computer and choose Manage. From the Manage window select Disk Management.
3. From the list of storage devices in the middle of the Disk Management window, locate your LaCie device.
4. By default, a partition is already created on the device with LaCie software utilities. Follow your operating system instructions to reset the existing partition.
5. To create a new partition, select New Simple Volume. Follow the on-screen instructions when the New Simple Volume Wizard appears.

1. Make sure the storage device is connected to and mounted on the computer.
2. Select Utilities from the Go menu in the Finder menu bar.
3. In the Utilities folder, double-click Disk Utility.
   
   Disk Utility will display the message Select a disk, volume, or image. All connected storage devices, partitions, or disk images will be displayed in this column. Storage devices in this column may have multiple listings. The top name is the name of the physical device's manufacturer, and includes the formatted capacity.
   
   
4. Select the storage device in the left-hand column.
5. Click the Erase tab.
6. Choose a format from the drop-down window. See About File System Formats for more information on choosing a file format.
7. Give the volume a name.
8. Click Erase… and confirm your selection in the popup window.