External drives · Drive formats
Does setting up a drive in Storage Studio erase what is already on it?
Short answer: No. Setting up a drive only adds a small Storage Studio folder and a tag so the app can recognise it; existing files are untouched. If the drive needs reformatting, you do that yourself in Disk Utility.
No. Storage Studio never formats or erases a drive. Setting a drive up just adds a small Storage Studio folder and tags the drive so the app can recognise it later — everything already on the drive stays exactly where it is.
If your drive needs a different format (for example it's FAT32 or NTFS), you erase it yourself in Disk Utility, after backing up anything on it. The same goes for Transfer Drive and Backup Drive: they only add data to the new drive and never change your current one.