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How to make external hard drive work on both Mac and PC? Good idea?

clutchm3

clutchm3

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 9, 2011
534
92
Hey guys first I want to know if it is even a good idea to use an external har drive on both mac and PC. What are the downsides of doing this? Is speed slower? Is it true that on a mac you will only be able to read files and not write them if it is formatted for both mac and PC?

How do I go about making an external hard drive work on both Mac and PC?

Thank you!
 
MrCheeto

MrCheeto

macrumors 68040
Nov 2, 2008
3,504
342
Go into Disk Utility and format the external drive to FAT.

No issues. No problems. Just do it.
 
Hellhammer

Hellhammer

Moderator emeritus
Dec 10, 2008
22,164
582
Finland
As long as you format the drive in right format, there won't be any issues. FAT32 can be natively accessed by both OSs, which makes it the best option. The downside is 4GB file size limit so for big files it's a no-go. However, exFAT is an option if you have Windows 7.

Other than FAT, there is NTFS which is Windows' file system and readable by OS X. Write support can be added via 3rd party software such as NTFS-3G.
 
Taz Mangus

Taz Mangus

macrumors 604
Mar 10, 2011
7,815
3,504
clutchm3 said:
Hey guys first I want to know if it is even a good idea to use an external har drive on both mac and PC. What are the downsides of doing this? Is speed slower? Is it true that on a mac you will only be able to read files and not write them if it is formatted for both mac and PC?

How do I go about making an external hard drive work on both Mac and PC?

Thank you!
Click to expand...

You would have to format the hard drive under windows as NTFS format and download MacFuse for the Mac. As I understand it, using MacFuse to write to the NTFS hard drive is a bit slower then using HFS+.
 
danpass

danpass

macrumors 68030
Jun 27, 2009
2,691
479
Glory
Hellhammer said:
As long as you format the drive in right format, there won't be any issues. FAT32 can be natively accessed by both OSs, which makes it the best option. The downside is 4GB file size limit so for big files it's a no-go. However, exFAT is an option if you have Windows 7.

Other than FAT, there is NTFS which is Windows' file system and readable by OS X. Write support can be added via 3rd party software such as NTFS-3G.
Click to expand...
Will stuff that OS X writes to an NTFS drive using NTFS-3G be readable and usable by a Windows machine?
 
H

HandySam

macrumors member
May 9, 2011
52
0
I would use exFAT. It's native in both. (at least since 10.6.5 and Windows Vista but you can download a hot fix from Microsoft for exFAT in XP I think)
 
Hellhammer

Hellhammer

Moderator emeritus
Dec 10, 2008
22,164
582
Finland
danpass said:
Will stuff that OS X writes to an NTFS drive using NTFS-3G be readable and usable by a Windows machine?
Click to expand...

Of course. Once the format is accessible by the OS, all of the files are too (as long as there is an app to open the file. E.g. .exe won't work in OS X without 3rd party tools).
 
2

2hvy4grvty

macrumors 6502
Jun 17, 2011
341
1
Yeah man, it only lacks support for the unpopular stuff, you know, like Ubuntu. Who uses that, right?
 
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